[inaudible conversations] >> and live now to the national press club here in washington this morning for a conference of the free state foundation on telecommunications policy. the chair of the federal communications commission will address the gathering as well as officials throughout the telecommunications and administration and management and budget and people from academia and think tanks. we're expecting a big topic of conversation the fcc's decision to end net neutrality. live coverage here on c-span2. [inaudible conversations] >> okay. please ask everyone to take their seats. we'll start here in one minute.

just grab your coffee and please take your seat. you were so quiet and did it so quickly, we won't wait the full minute, so, we are going to get started. randy may, president of the free state foundation and i'm pleased to welcome you once again to the free state foundation's annual telecom policy conference. this one is our 10th annual conference. i have to shake myself sometimes when i say that or think that and this june will mark the free state

foundation's 12th anniversary. i want to give a special welcome to our c-span audience as well. we're very pleased and grateful that c-span once again is broadcasting this annual conference live on c-span2 so, welcome to all the c-spanners. each year, i say that our annual telecom conference keeps getting bigger, better and more impactful and i say each year i'm going to keep saying it for as long as it's true. some of you probably have heard me say that before. well, just consider it said, again this year. because, once again, we have an outstanding group of speakers and programs lined up. now, within a week of being named fcc chairman, proclaimed the closing remaining digital

divides would be a top priority. so, with that priority in mind, we decided that this year's conference theme would be connecting all of america, advancing the giga bit and 5-g future. as most of you know, or at least many of you, free state foundation scholars hold their faithfulness to free market principles and policies, along with respect for property rights and adherence to the rule of law are fundamental principles that should guide law making and policy making. we believe that these principles are consistent with achieving the goal of connecting consumers all across america in the most efficient and effective manner, but that doesn't mean that we don't recognize a role in helping to close existing digital divides

for any targeted officially run government programs, such as lifeline, for example. that supports low income persons. while i'm sure there will be and should be considerable discussion about net neutrality today, after all, there has been for each of the last nine annual conferences, that's true. i went back and checked, for each of the last nine annual conferences. the conference program is designed to encourage plenty of debate regarding the subtitle of the conference theme, advancing the giga bit and 5-g future. that's another way to my mind of thinking about closing remaining digital divides. i'm not going to take any time now to go over the program.

the agenda, because you have the brochure in front of you and the brochure has the complete program and all the bios, but for the benefit of our c-span audience, i will just sketch this briefly. after my remarks we're going to see a video, a brief video from fcc chairman and then david reynold, nti administrator will give a keynote address. that's going to be followed by two what i have called all-star panels. following those two panels, the trump administration's quote, regulatory czar, if i can about ut --

put it that way will give a keynote address and then we'll have a lunch buffet and part of the lunch program, of course, will with the traditional conversation and that will be with commissioners raleigh and carr and then we'll close it out with what i know will be a very interesting and lively panel of three of the free state foundation's most prominent scholars. they're all prominent scholars, but these three, i think you'll find, will be a real treat to close out the program today. so i want to encourage you to tweet during today's conference using the twitter handle #fsfconf 10. we'll have that up in different places on the brochure, of course. i just mention, we have some

books for sale outside those books are-- and they are on sale for the remarkably low price of $8 a book. and they're titled com act update and the books are comprised of a series of submissions that the free state foundation made in response to the house commerce committee exercise about three or four years ago, that began an examination of looking to update and modernize the communications act and the book contains all of those submissions with-- that were put together by the free state foundation scholars, including our members of our board of academic advisors, plus a very comprehensive

introduction that brings everything that happened at the fcc after 2015, up-to-date. so that's what that book does. i want to just take the opportunity now so i don't forget to thank kathy baker, our events and communications coordinator and also, my wife lori. lori, she does an awful lot of things for the free state foundation, you know, most of-- most of which are behind the scenes, but they're important, so, if you would join me in thanking both kathy and lori, i'd appreciate it. [applaus [applause] >> okay, with that, in closing, i just want to say, and i do this every year as

well and i mean it every year, i really remain grateful for the interest and participation of so many of you in our program, activities, events like these, obviously reading our publications. we're grateful for that and above all, all of us at the free state foundation, we appreciate your friendship. so, with that, i'm going to ask that the video, short video from the chairman be cued up before administrator reynolds' keynote. keynote. >> good morning, thank you to randy may and the free state foundation for your good work. for this opportunity to help kick off today's events. now, what do people hate more than a long video is anyone who makes them wait to hear from

david reynolds so i plan to keep this short. the prime rir i theme of today's forum, as most of you know this has been a prevailing theme of my chairmanship. and closing the divide will be my highest priority. and i've tried not just to run my mouth, but to be on the run. i've logged over 4,000 miles to visit the people and places bypassed by the digital revolution and to highlight their stories. the most effective thing the fcc can do to effect more americans to faster and better broadband is to remove regulatory barriers to network investment. someone member morebly put it at the 2016 gala, we need to fire up the weed whacker and remove those rules holding up investments, innovation and job creation. and that's exactly what we've done over the past 14 months. we have scrapped heavyhanded utility style title 2

regulations and restored the light touch frame work to led to 4.5 trillion in network investment and u.s. leadership in the global digital economy. we have modernized our rules for business data services known to some of you as special access to ease unnecessary regularly rate and increase infrastructure. we've launched initiatives to the deployment of wired and wireless infrastructure. and i'll talk more about this later. and we've removed obstacles for companies looking to move next generation satellites to dramatically improve the speed and capacity of satellite broadband. i'm proud of what we've accomplished to extend digital opportunity to our fellow americans and i have no intention of slowing down. looking ahead, i thought i'd focus on the subtheme of today's conference, advancing the giga bits and 5-g future. the beauty of the networks,

giga bit speeds and 5-g can be one and the same. 5-g promises wireless, fiber fast connectivity that will unleash the internet of things and unlock innovations yet to be imagined. 5-g will be infrastructure heavy and analyst rekwiert a 100-fold increase of the amount of small cells deployed in the united states. there's a snag. many of the fcc rules were designed for 200 foot cell towers. we are going to have to make it easier to deploy these new networks and we took an important step on that front just last week. we adopted an order making clear that the fcc does not need a federal historic preservation and environmental review for every single small cell. a review estimates that the new rules will estimate sayings of $1.56 billion. we'll generate up to 17,000 new jobs and we'll speed the deployment of next generation networks. this won't be the last order to

come out of the wireless infrastructure proceedings that we watched last year. and special thanks to the special commissioner to get our infrastructure rules 5-g ready. of course, spectrum will be critical to our 5-g future and we're busy on this front, too. the big ticket item for 2018 will be an option of the 2018 gigahertz band followed immediately by at option of a 24 gigahertz band. for these options i circulated to my fellow commissioners yesterday, a public note seeking input on option procedures. we will vote on that public notice on our april meetings. that's not all we're doing. we're continuing to make progress on airwaves above 24 gigahertz, and in the frontiers proceeding and last month, we raised our eyes to the spectrum horizons looking to open up spectrum above 95 gigahertz for commercial use. the spectrum will be critical

for 5-g and why we've partnered with administrator reynolds to review the three dot 4 gigahertz band and why i asked commissioner o'riley the band. and we look to 3.7 to 4 f for terrestrial use. we're looking at unlicensed spectrum opportunities below 8 gigahertz with a particular focus on studying new opportunities for shared use in the 6 gigahertz band and elsewhere. that's not enough fcc for you, the good news is that commissioners o'riley and carr will be joining us this afternoon. let me just close by thanking free state foundation once more for elevating the policy discussions on communication issues. the goal is clear, taking everyone and the benefits of the internet age to all americans. meeting that goal won't be easy, but events like this help

steer us in the right direction. so, thank you to free state and thank you to everyone taking part in this important discussion by the future of our digital economy. have a great conference. [applaus [applause] >> okay, thanks to chairman pai for those remmarks and grateful to him. originally he was scheduled to be here, but then a conflict arose. by the way, i think that most of you know, but for those of you who may not, i think he was the person that talked about taking a weedchwhacker to the regulations over at fcc and you know, i don't know whether you want to refer to it as a

weedwhacker or what, but to my find, chairman pai has done a good job and gotten off to a fast start in terms of looking at regulations. that may no longer serve the public interest, but in light of the change in circumstances, thank you chairman pai. so now it's my pleasure, i know administrator randall is here in the room. and i'm going to ask him to come up. there you are. just have a seat for just-- it's really a great pleasure for me to introduce david reynold. i'm going to say this now. you know, we have the complete bios of all of our speakers in this nice brochure and that

includes david's bio, so, with his permission and everyone else's today, i'm not going to go through the whole bio, but just give you the very basics and for david, of course, the most important thing is he's the assistant secretary for communications and information at the department of commerce, a position he assumed in november of last year. and in that capacity, he also has the dual role of administrator for the national and telecommunications information administration, which is the executive branches principal advisor on telecom policy. and prior to assuming this job, david, as many of you know, if not most, was the chief counsel

at the house committee on energy and commerce. and you know, what i'll say about that, just to put it in one sentence is that i think all of us have an understanding of how having served in that role for many years, how many years was it? . okay. i was right. seven, almost seven years, there probably was not another job you know in washington that could have prepared him any better for the job that he has now. so with that, join me in welcoming david redl, please. [applaus [applause] >> thanks, randy. i'm proud to be here speaking today and i'd also like to thank you for singlehandedly keeping the com update hash tag

alive. it's some time since we used that on capitol hill. i'm glad to see it's still ticking. i've always appreciated free state's many issues and the value that you have in bringing a robust and intelligent debate to some of these issues. thanks for having me. today's theme is timely and fits well if our goal at ntia, which is to expand development of 5-g and help connect all americans to the internet. the administration made clear that connecting all americans, especially those in rural areas is a major priority. we know that too many americans still lack access to reliable, affordable broadband internet service. at ntia we're working on this problem by helping them gain access to technology that can improve education, promote economic development and unleash this. and community leaders seeking to expand broadband

connectivity. and we've helped more than 250 communities develop public-private partnerships to meet their connectivity needs and digital inclusion goals. our state broadband leaders network help facilitate information sharing among representatives for more than 20 states. we just concluded a highly successful summit in tennessee where we worked with the development authority and brought more than 200 state and local officials to share best ideas for improving the state's connectivity. we're expanding connectivity by ensuring there is enough spectrum to meet our nation's 5-g needs. one of the core missions is striking a balance between the demand for spectrum between various commercial users and the need for federal agencies in their important missions. thanks to the hard work of our interdepartmental agency and the steering group, two advisory bodies we have on the government side, ngia was recently able to announce 3450

to-- for reallocation to commercial services. we have a lot of work to do to determine if this is viable for us to go to auction, but we have to work now to figure out whether or not we can support our government incumbents which include the defense department radar vital to national security. this could be an important band for us because it's ajays -- adjacent to the spectrum and could help fuel our nation's 5-g leadership. dod plans to submit a proposal to study for services in this band without harming operations. we hope the results of this hard work will be a win-win to enable continuing growth of the u.s. industry while maintaining the defense department's mission critical systems. the pipeline act and the spectrum relocation fund are two of the strongest tools we have to look for freed up spectrum for commercial uses, but we want to have every tool

possible to make sure that we're making the most of our nation's scarce spectrum resources. clearing out bands is our priority. let's be clear. the law says that's our priority and we continue to look for bands to clear, but we know that there are other bands we're clearing out government users is not an option. to that end, ntia continues to develop novel spectrum management approaches. for example, the president's budget for 19 includes ntia to administer leases to federal spectrum. this could be a valuable tool in areas where clearing is not an option, but extra uses that could be made and efficient use of the band. this is a high level proposal at this point. in many details need to be sorted out, but i believe it has great potential as an additional tool for the government to use to meet our needs. we look to find ways for our agencies, to use spectrum to help us identify bands.

whether upgraded technology or capabilities could serve as incentive or whether agencies could become beneficiaries of the services provided by commercial users in the band. we'd also have to sort out how to fund the resources needed to negotiate leases and administer the program. but the idea to add as many tools as we can and to put underutilized spectrum to work while maximizing the economic value of spectrum and protecting federal incumbents. we're happy to see that congress is interested in novel approaches as well. ray bond's act signed into law last week as part of the budget deal includes researching incentives for agencies to release more spectrum and by national sharing. a side note. ray was a personal friend of mine worked closely for many years with him in energy and commerce and i'm really pleased to see that spectrum that adorns his name will have a major impact on the next generation of connectivity and i appreciate the blog that free state publish this had week

highlighting the accomplishments of this important legislation that bears his name. as we look to further tools, we're relying heavily on the sciences, ntia's research lab in bolden, -- bolder, colorado. 3 dot 5 gigahertz. and they're helping to bring 3 dot 5 to life. the heart of this spectrum band, are two. spectrum, and capability that will allow commercial users to could he exist with navy radar systems. they're seeking to certify that these systems are necessary because they're necessary to bring the band to not. 3.5 gigahertz and c-band has the potential to make as many as 750 megahertz of continuous mid band spectrum available to our nation's 5-g needs.

it's a big deal. we're also welcoming the vote last week approving the order easing regulations that depleted deployment of wireless infrastructure. an important step in america's leadership in wireless connectivity and consistent with ntia's commitment to help remove abscle to allow it to flourish. and they're looking to improve coordination and broadband deployment another priority for this administration. and through the working group, which we co-chair alongside our colleagues at the department of agriculture utility service. at present our efforts in the big as we're calling it, are focused on three work streams. these align for key recommendations for the president's task force on agriculture and rural prosperity. expanding broadband was the number one recommendation. the first area of focus for the big, that's a working group is known, is federal permitting. we're looking at requirements

on broadband facilities on federal lands. in an effort to streamline permitting efforts and establish consistency across agencies. the second area federal funding of broadband. as many of you know, the federal government has disparate projects to support broadband buildout. broads band support and we've been looking at the efficacy of the programs and looking to enhance coordination across the u.s. government. several agencies were tasked with broadband in the fiscal 18. and we're looking at the commerce development authority, excuse me, administration, asked to prioritytize areas in the broadband projects. the third and final area for the working group to look at it leveraging federal assets for federal broadband deployment. in january, president trump issued a memo for the interior

department for access to tower. and this could lower the cost of buildouts and encourage american infrastructure deployment in rural america. the rural prosperity task force also recommended assessing the current state of nationwide access, including infrastructure gaps and opportunities for more efficient deployment. we know one of the best ways to solve the digital divide is to better understand it. ntia has been a leader in collecting and analyzing data on broadband adoption and using that data to develop policy. we have decades of experience in analyzing broadband in the united states, we have high quality data-driven policy research that's essential to create a holistic view of the current state of broadband deployment. to do so we need accurate, reliable data analysis to form such decisions, to better coordinate programs that fund broadband infrastructure. we need to be able to aggregate existing information with multiple data outlets across the u.s. using innovative ideas to harness deployment coverage

that may not be available from the 477 data. last week congress appropriated funds to ntia to work with the fcc and the states to update the broadband maps with more diverse data. and provide a tool for policy makers to better target the funds that are allocated to bring broadband to our country. and the group has spent the last two years continuing to cultivate the broadband leaders network which includes state, county and local government to spend layer time thinking how to improve broadband in their communities. the situation has yielded real results for us, with states who have been willing to take on the challenge of maintaining the maps and getting good data. through ongoing meetings, including a recent summit in tennessee, statement community leaders get a chance to learn what works and what's failed by communities across their state and across the country in their efforts to bring broadband to

their citizens. whether it's solving a local connectivity issue or using approaches to spectrum development. ntia hopes to advance in the 5 g future. everyone here today has a perspective on this and i want everyone to know my door is open. we really value the approach that each of you takes. we value your feedback and we think that the best way for us to produce good policy is to have a strong connection to working with private sectors in society on real concrete and valuable solutions so we want to hear from you, we want to know what you think and we know it's important and please don't be shy about coming to us. i want to thank randy for 12 years of great work at the state foundation and ten years of this wonderful event and thank you for having me here today. i look forward to questions. [applaus

[applause] >> david, thank you again for those remarks which we appreciate and thanks for mentioning the blog that was gre great-- visiting fellow did on ray baum's act. it is very important as administrator redl pointed out. i want to say this. all of us are pleased that the bill had ray baum's name attached to it. ... bringing that measure forward and develop it, so he of course

deserves a lot of credit for that. david has agreed to take a few questions, so the way we're going to do this is that if you have a question i want you to identify yourself, please, and try and ask a question, if possible. i'll help you do that, if you have trouble with it. rather than a long statement. we've got a mic and want you to wait until you are recognized me, and then we will have a few questions here so if you -- rick, were you raising your hand? >> lynn stanton. do you have any thoughts yet on where you're going to look for the data that are funded through

the bill last week? my team is in a process of digging through it and figure out what we can do to best and most efficiently use the 7.5 million, as you have probably seen in the press widely reported the budget has general as for $50 million to achieve the goals here congress provided 7.5 so we're now going to and figure out how we can use that $7.5 million in a way that produces the best tool for policymakers to make their decisions. you know, the bill passed very recently said don't have an answer for you that, but we are working on it. >> okay. the gentleman -- >> i'm working for the european union delegation in washington. david very well spelled out what the plans for your work are. i wonder if you didn't find the time to look at what the industry maybe should be doing

or what your views are expectations for what industry side are. >> with respect to the issues on spectrum, we are in close contact with our colleagues in the private sector on spectrum and in the government at all times. you've got three different advisory committees, one of the commercial side, too, on the government side to make sure that we are in constant dialogue with both industry and our government users as we develop good policy. on 5g i think we're all going to the same thing paul pot -- 5g is a term that is everything to everyone and we're trying to figure out how best to meet america's needs and make sure that as we go forward in this next generation of wireless infrastructure that we are maximizing the value to the american citizens, particularly in rural america, ensuring that we have security medications. the president made very clear

that security medications is part of a national security strategy, particularly with respect to 5g. and making sure america continues to be a leader in wireless. we've been a world leader in 4g lte. we want to maintain a leadership as we go forth in a 5g world so we continue to talk with our colleagues in the private sector constantly about these things. >> okay. do we have come with time for maybe one more question, if we have one. looks like all the way over on the side. >> thank you, mr. administered. switching gears a little bit but still in your wheelhouse, the chairman of the sec announced proposal to deny funds to carriers for u.s. funds for carriers that if a chinese equipment network. i have not yet seen that proposed order up but traditionally national security is an executive branch function. if that proposal does pass what would be the role of ntia in coordinating national security

insight into the -- if it does past? >> so the proposal is an white copy now. looking for to what you with our colleagues to see what they produce and then ntia role will be to work across the u.s. government both within the department of commerce where we have significant expertise on these issues but also cause the entire u.s. come to the got a whole of government response incarnation with our colleagues. stay tuned, patricia. >> okay. i think we will now thank administrator redl. i want to present him with a small token of appreciation. i guess the emphasis is on small this time. david, you know, in the past sometimes, you may have seen this, we have presented speakers with maybe larger tokens. you know, i have found out there is concern, often do they exceed some government limit, you know,

terms of the ethical requirements or whatnot and, of course, i want to be sensitive to that. but i'm going to present you with this beautiful ballpoint pen. [laughing] emblazoned with free state foundation on it. you know, i'm almost embarrassed to say it, but you know, , i guarantee you this pen, we secured it, largely through the sharp eyes of my wife, laurie. its value is under one dollar, so i hope -- [laughing] i hope you can keep it and use it in good health. most of all thanks for being here. [applause] >> giving a bureaucrat at then seems somehow appropriate, randy, so i appreciate it. [applause] okay, for those of you who are standing, it's great to see such a large crowd, we do have seats.

there are seats up front, so i hope you will find the sea. i'm now going to call on my colleagues, senior fellow seth cooper, to come up along with his panel, and we will move right into the next panel now. and right after this panel we're going to move right into the second all-star panel no later than 10:45. okay. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> i like to welcome and going to the tenth free state conference annual conference that right he welcomed us all to this point. our panel, the first all-star panel for today is solutions for connecting america and closing digital divides. so again i like to welcome the audience, welcomed the audience on c-span2 you this morning, excited to forgo morning cartoons to tune into the latest and future issues of digital

communication policy. we have four as image and all-star panel us with us today. i will introduce them briefly. john jones is the senior vice president of public policy and government relations with sentry link. he is responsible interlinked policy and advocacy positions, the federal, state and local policymakers that includes the fcc, congress, state regulatory bodies and industry groups. he has a 24 year tenure with the company that is now sentry link, reaching back to century tell. prior to that he was a director and add your communications faculty member of the university of monroe for a dozen years. he's also a member of the board of directors for u.s. telecom. so we're glad to have john here today. and we also have with us tom power who senior vice president and general counsel of ctia.

he has held that position since 2015. prior to which he was u.s. deputy chief technology officer for telecommunications in the white house office of science and technology. from 2011-2014 and he was chief of staff that ntia from april april 2009, august 2011. he has worked in industry and law practice as well, and was a a senior legal advisor to chairman william kinard. we are glad to have him because he's a recent addition to our panel and it will not be reflected in the bio we have that wear gloves to light up tom power here. we also received late sunday night word that michael powell would be unable to attend because of an unavoidable last-minute schedule conflict,, so we're delighted to have james matthew with us you today who's executive vice president at ncta, the internet and television association. he's the second most senior executive at ncta involved in

all aspects of their work. prior to that he was a longtime member of the u.s. senate committee on commerce science and transportation. most recently including serving a senior democratic counsel to the committee. he has worked in law practice as well, and taught communications law as an adjunct faculty member georgetown university law school. welcome back, james. and i would also like to welcome back nicol turner-lee was a fellow in government study at the center for technology innovation at brookings. contributing to texting, prince of vice president and chief research and policy officer at the multicultural media telecom internet counsel at ntc. and in that role she let the design and the limitations of the research policy and advocacy agendas. prior to that she was vice president and first director of media and technology institute

at the center, joint center for political and economic studies. and so we're certainly delighted to have you back as well, no call. just little bit about the format for this all-star panel. each panelist will kick things off with an opening remark going about five minutes and we ask you to keep that the five minutes or the free state foundation panel buzzer will go off. after that time i'll give it the panelists if they wish a moment or two to briefly respond to anything they hear. following that we will have some question time on the panel. i will direct some questions to our all-star panelists. i followed that open up to the audience who have questions pixel as a galante if you have any kind of a question that comes to mind, please hang onto it and we will hopefully get to you for our folks in tv land, we don't have an operator standby to take your questions, but for

those who are following on twitter, we have a twitter handle that is 1019. that is acted as we speak -- #fsfconf10. for opening remarks i will first start with james. >> the curse of the day. [laughing] >> i'll sit at the next day. thank you, seth. thank you, rated it's a pleasure to be back here with anyone and i extend michael's apologies. i know he would have loved to have been here today to talk to you. i think the topic that police will start on was focusing on connecting america and closing the digital divide. let me briefly got a start what always like to start when we discuss how we fill in the gaps and the holes that we have, that is to really take tremendous

stock of what we've seen over the last decade, decade and a half, two decades, you know, with respect to the cable industry weave through and certainly we are not alone but through a lot of private capital invested and a lot of industry we fill out networks that can provide access to 94% of america's households, and that's not an insubstantial accomplishment, particularly when you consider the demands that consumers put on internet networks continues to grow by leaps and bounds year after year after year. that's also not to diminish the importance of closing that last gap, that 6%, who can't yet get access to broadband or even closing the adoption gap of those people who could get it but haven't yet joined the rest of the sign in using the internet as fully and, as they

should. we will look of what we need to do to kind of close that 6%, i think you've only heard i think this morning from assistant secretary david redl, developments in congress, a lot of focus on what we can do to close the gap. i think one of the things one of the overlays that we put on any type of strategy is to really recognize technology neutrality and the need to design policies that reflect on and respect the fact that we have a multiplicity of different broadband platforms available to us. who would've thought that cable technology has evolved to where it is today, that wireless technology has evolved to where it is, that satellite technology continues to evolve? and there is really no one-size-fits-all in the country that is as diverse as the united

states with the different types of geographical challenges we have in a country this large. so i think we have to recognize that as we develop policies, we need to come up with one's that are focused on multiplicity of pathways to the consumer to provide them with internet service. i think another thing that we have hopefully learned from past mistakes is to really when we focus on the public subsidy portion of connecting america, to refocus attention on the answer parts of america, those places that don't have that broadband to make sure that the scarce resources we have available are not going to basically layer over places we already have built right into private capital. and i'm encouraged by recently which i was in the omnibus appropriations bill with respect to the new, newly created our

u.s. pilot program that is aimed at ensuring the dollars go to where they're needed so that we can assess whether these programs are actually working or not and hopefully make that whole smaller and smaller. and similarly when it comes to writing reform, again, i think we all acknowledge the fact that the more friction we can take out of the system, the better because it will enable private capital to go further in building and extending networks. i think we just need to be cognizant of the fact that we do have different technology platforms and policy really needs to be built so it deals evenhandedly with all the different multiplicity of infrastructures we have out there. so that's the writ large approach that a think we need to continue to focus on and i think recent signs are encouraging. >> thank you, james. we will go on to john jones of center link. >> i appreciate the be today and

at the time and good topic for us to cover and in light of ale industry convergence out of there and also what seems to be sort of a renewed focus on broadband speeds and availability out in the marketplace. many of you know the history of both central lake and so i can talk from a lot of different perspectives as we have gone through several iterations of the company including a small role telephone company and broadband for someone more room markets in in the country. and now with acquisition of level three, major internet backbone provider globally. i'll try to weave all that together. got probably of -- top with and i think i voted be good for us to talk about technology was going on in history is that networks are actually combining out to become a hybrid of both cyber and spectrum. most networks are. what that means is we where focusing to be put in terms of enablement is on spectrum and fiber. both are expensive and both have

their own challenges for deployment but when combined they do a great job of building advanced networks and providing advanced services for others. the real issue, the question is, the specter of a substitute for a substitute for fiber? if you look at it from the standpoint when you combine the two they really need each other to be successful. so those two combined will begin the enablement process and by the nature of the technology of five gee, if we have to build fiber closer in row markers get the 5g out there, the fiber will be a major enabler of 5g going forward in most of the markets out there. one of the questions which ask ourselves as a primary role provider is what is the future of rural america works before when we were a much smaller company we've reached about amid 90 tello 90% threshold enablement threshold enablement in some really small markets and

that was our strong suit. a few acquisitions later that percentage dropped significantl significantly, the acquisition of quest but we still have been a leading provider of broadband in those markets. and so i guess our view is the least of our network perspective that most of company market that had a reasonable hint of profitability or an economic basis to ploy, we pretty much have done those. what is left of my point, what's left though to the point will be the most challenging market regardless of platform. the cost behind the challenges are going to be great. and so we looking for ways to get there and i think with the white house has done, close attention fcc attention to fight additional funding for this market is a very positive and we appreciate the focus and renewed interest. despite the large mass of many that been bandied about in terms of provided for the services in

the funny i think we all know in this room it's not going to be enough money to do the total job that people are looking to take place. so that's one issue. the other is, had the pleasure on serving on a subcommittee on barriers and back to me did i think a great job of coming together and identifying and coming to agreement on what the bears to increase work. a lot of that with federal lands and permitting. anything that is done there will actually speed to market is really the emphasis there but it does very little to address the cost issues. it's a great movement, getting that moving forward. one thing that our company is looking for is hybrid solutions the last mile. we are at a point in the big square states like wyoming or the dakotas, those ranges and others are very difficult even for us to reach. some of them have trouble providing to do awfully addled

networks. so hybrid solutions are looking more and more appealing to our company, and if you look at what satellite has done recently, their speech much better, their affordability is getting better and the latency is less. and so when you look at that and the partnerships there that are possible, i think that's really a solution for providers to come together in meaningful partnerships to see what the solutions are. and then fixed wireless is another opportunity and that is where 5g comes in again and we're looking also at ways we cannot only handle that call for 5g but also provide us fixed wireless solution for those markets. the last thing i want to touch on really is i think consumer demand. we're talking a lot about providers and networks that consumers are a big factor for us. we are in an environment where we're chasing an increased speed demands. we've all been chasing speed for a long time but we're also facing technology agnostic

fairly sophisticated consumer element now that maybe wasn't here a few years ago. what they're looking for regardless of the platform they use, i don't think they care if it's wi-fi or small cell or large cell or wireline, what you're looking for is a positive internet experience at the end of the day. that's our job to provide that. it also goes into the heart of network security, privacy and other issues that they're wanting to provide. this is what i will touch on the open internet is that we see from an enterprise standpoint and a consumer standpoint that some of the more volatile and emotional terms of 30 with net neutrality such as throttling and prioritization actually become increasingly more of a custard divan issue as they evolve -- customer demand issue. our job is to respond to that

demand. that's one thing that chairman pai order does do is does allow providers like us the flexibility to respond without fear of enforcement action or anything else out to those in the 2015 order. from the standpoint of customer choice and the flexibility of providers to address that choice we think think the oracle alonn dividing some stability and predictability for that network experience. >> thank you, john. tom power, ctia. >> thank you for having me here today. i don't think it will shock anyone in the room that the wireless industry spokesman wrote on ig's days. we see as potentially transformative for the wireless experience across industries and across society and that's because of what 5g can deliver. it's capable 400 times the bandwidth of existing wireless technologies will connect millions more devices and one of

the most significant factors about 5g is a really low latency which is basically speed at which bits can hop from one point to the next. that enables applications that are real-time or near real time and need to be real time in order to be useful. we we'll see a huge change in healthcare, transportation and we can go across the board would come to different industries. this ripple effect will have a huge effect on the economy. we expect to see $509 in contributions of gdp, according to a report by century that we commission that will be supported support by 3 million new jobs and the wireless carriers alone are expected to contribute to wonder city $5 billion in capital expenditures -- the point is it's much more than the carriers or even will think of as the wireless industry narrowly. it is throughout the economy. this is something that we have gotten pretty good at in this

country in terms of wireless. the u.s. has been a leader going back decades, the cell phone was invented here. smartphone was invented here. american companies dominate the market for operating systems, the engine inside your smart phones. you go to the apple store, those are dominated by american innovations. we have built out 4g across this country racing past most of the countries, and we see much greater demand the usage of 4g in this country per capita we see in most other countries. and without reached about 98% of the kind with 4g and the vast majority of those people have access to at least three carriers. we have to keep that momentum going. other countries see what we're doing. it want to rival us or eclipse us when it comes to 5g. we are seeing trials in cities all over the world, 5g trials in cities all over the country. it's important that we keep this success to live in the u.s. for the wireless industry there are two pillars we build on. one is spectrum, the airwaves

over which the data travels and one is infrastructure, in some cases literally pillars, where do to reinstall and how do we install the small cells that would carry all this data and i would do we do it efficiently? we've heard both chairman pai and administrator redl talk about that. for us on spectrum, we seen some good momentum. just last week congress essentially reconfirm the authority to move forward with spectrum auctions. you were chairman pai this morning talk about two of the higher bands come spectrum bands that he wants to see go to auction starting later this year which is great. we need to keep that going with other bands that the fcc has identified for auction. we need to get those auctions scheduled as well and it's the high band, mid-band, your discussion in the 3.4-2.3 gigahertz range. internationally those bands are

getting a lot of attention and it's important that we harmonize as much as a camp around the world. that helps with steele creek that helps the people making the devices and the chips reduce their costs which means you can have faster and more efficient deployment. we are looking for more activity there on the spectrum front. on the side effect we earlier again from chairman pai and administrator redl on action the fcc took last week on society and streamlining the siting process. every time you want to install an antenna, there is the overlay of regulation at the federal level, state, local level in terms of getting the approvals you need for that. the challenge has been as chairman pai said, a lot of those rules were written in the widest context when we got a big towers, 200-foot towers and antennas, make antennas and the associated equipment that went along with that. they were not written to think

of small cells in the associated much more associated equipment that comes with it. last week the sec took a big step forward and streamlining the review process at the federal level especially for small cells. we've been working at the state and local level to exhibit the process of there. because local governments will always have a role to play when it comes to siting and it's important that we respect that role. they have costs that they incur in terms of reimbursing those costs. that's a fair ask but we need more uniformity and we need to make sure the delays we have seen in the siting process can be eliminated. we need to make sure the cost that they do impose in terms of overseeing all this are not disproportionate in comparison to the cost that the municipalities actually incur. with estimated will need about 800,000 small cells by 2026.

so the importance of getting infrastructure right really can't be overstated. so i would say siting and spectrum are the two things you're going to hear from the wireless industry for the foreseeable future. >> thank you, tom. and now nicol turner-lee. >> last but certainly not least. so i i want to thank randy for having here. i what you think all of you, my distinguished panelists, for involvement in this conversation and to -- some going to ask to talk about people and what the conversation is about in terms of connecting american enclosing digital divide because my perspective when you close the digital divide, what we know today is internet usage is rapidly increased. that's a fact. many of the syndrome were in this debate can use coal member the time we were in single digit broadband adoption and

penetration and as schip said e are seeing more and more people getting online because the infrastructure becoming more readily available. out of that positive trajectory when a look at the digital divide there still about 11% of americans who do not have access. they tend to be older americans, up to report 34% over the age of 65 don't have internet access. they have less than high school diploma and 35%. our rural as with all have come to settle on that fact, pew report again in march about 22% of people who are not internet adopters of rural residents and they are poor. that's 19%. yet despite all of these obstacles they are still americans. they still deserve to be connected in a way that is meaningful by the risk the chance of becoming digitally invisible. for those of us who have been in this debate, that has consequences over the long run if we do not get this right.

many of you know i'm a sociologist, a big fan of michael harrington book the other america. he talked about the one poverty cookie stated we in u.s. had understated the amount of people were disconnected from economic mainstream institutions. i would argue today and i will be arguing this in the book i will have coming out at brookings we still have the same problem. we look at digital disconnectedness. in response to what this panel is about, what i like to keep pressing upon people as we move towards a more ubiquitous infrastructure is that the cost of not being online is even greater today than it's ever been before. there's a cost to digital exclusion. if you close your eyes eyes and imagine yourself without your device in your pocket, without your ability to engage in various functions, you would feel disadvantaged just like the 11% of not internet users that feel that way today. what does that mean? i will leave us with a couple of

points because panelists think adequate pickup on infrastructure. i like to see this and also couched my remarks in this context for those of you who've been listening to me lately, that the digital divide is no longer binary. it's not an issue of the haves and have-nots. my last point, i will keep you time i promise, will suggest that. let me first say i think it is important to accelerate broadband access to the underserved whether it is through what tom talked about the acceleration of 5g technology which we know will bolster the capacity of people to get things done in a meaningful way. that's going to require much more work in small so deployment, spectrum management, et cetera. i also think we can't cannot be built of fixed wireline to do the same job. we've got to get internet access into communities in any way possible. so i don't see is as a market place picking winners and losers. i honestly see is trying to figure out ways that we can both -- bolster and accelerate access, urban, suburban, rural.

most of the panels have suggested it's not a one-size-fits-all solution. i think it's important that we call attention to the fact the lifeline program cannot be guided. the commission right now is working under the guise of where there some sort of time stop -- gutted -- when it comes to lifeline. you go back to the 11% of people who are not online. what it needs to be low income and discourage something we all should not assume to understand nor should we assume that we should place barriers on peoples ability to get access to opportunity. streamlining, cutting the lifeline program and opposing unnecessary cap will have a touch of no effect digital divide especially if the program starts with the assumption that people are trying to outsmart the benefit. so i actually share that in my support at brookings of looking at this issue and what that means for income americans who

are becoming rapidly digitally marginalized. finally i will just say this. it's important one of the panelists all be said to close the digital divide we have to member today's technology is not tomorrow's solution. we've got to come up with the regulatory certainty that adopts itself to investment expansion, good public policy that supports what tom said spectrum allocation while at the same time recognizing the internet of today is not going to be what we regulate tomorrow. artificial intelligence, machine learning, algorithms and other technologies will become the next driver towards white america's not fully connected if we don't get this right. so i say that because the regulatory certainty plays a lot in the current debates we're having over picking winners and losers on the internet. i say that publicly we probably need to move away from frameworks that restrict us of a 1934 regulations and move towards conversations and debate that allow for the full

utilization and effective utilization of the internet. my final remark, what with precision medicine look like in ten years if we had regulatory policy that did not adapt to what someone already said consumer demand? how would artificial intelligence health and people become educated if we actually regulated the internet the same unregulated the telegraph and the telephone? i put that at the entrance of this this conversation connected america and closing the digital divide. it's more than just infrastructure. it is not a one-size-fits-all solution. it's comprehensive approach to how we want to ensure more people get access to the benefits of being online. >> thank you, nicol. tom, if i could turn back to you on the issue of infrastructure again. what can the 115th congress to do going forward? you mention reauthorization of the fcc, but what can they do on the issue of infrastructure in making 5g infrastructure less

costly, speedup and accelerate the process? what legislation might be the most promising people? >> there's a number of efforts pending on the hill and bipartisan efforts i should say. this is one area where folks on both sides of the aisle kind of get the big picture. so there are number of bills i could choose from, and so i think i might have to pick among my children. about the risk of offending different sponsors of different bills and hopefully for not watching c-span2 this morning. i think the efforts of senators who and -- have taken on infrastructure siding is probably the most effective vehicle i've seen right now. we do a couple things. in terms of making more uniform the siding was across country so that when you apply to cite an intent or tower in a public right of ways, , sort of know wt the rules are.

it put timelines, deadlines and local governments to act on those citing requests with the length of time depending on the nature of the installation. it would also ensure the localities are paid their costs that they incur in overseeing this process, and those costs would have to be disclosed publicly and would have to be neutral so that you don't have different players with different costs for getting essentially the same rights of access. i would say that is one were strongly behind. >> nicol, if i could turn to you. i believe that earlier this month you spoke to a group regarding 5g sell the plymouth and engaging local stakeholders. could you give a bigger picture or fill us in on roundup that aspect of 5g deployment? could you do so? >> i spoke to several panels about 5g. he believed in the power of 5g. i think 5g is going to select the type of effective

utilization we want to see from particularly the groups i'm interested in. low-income and historically underserved. the ability to do as i mentioned before more remote medicine, better and approved educational opportunities among young people, it's immeasurable and i think i told state legislator and a canteen to say this, the train has already left the station what comes to rolling out 5g within communities. you don't want to be that city that's not really working to get in your community. i live in alexandria. i would hate to go to arlington not be able to access 5g just by crossing over into different city line. as we go forward what we have urged people, what i urged him a conversation with various groups is let's figure out how to work together on this and collaborate. i built an attitude that this because i've been saying out across town, the first small cell network, tom, windows in chicago working for one economy we used delink routers pick it was a very hard issue to solve

when you try to propagate against buildings in the west side of chicago. so i did it with regard to technical architecture, and it will take a team of people working together to make sure that we can really roll it out at a a pace that is equal, seamless and allows people that opportunity. we can't wait. low income people, do we want them at a rate where they're trying come get her homework via 3g speeds? i don't think so. we've got to really figure out what locally satellite process rarely enough wages cooperation and potential collaboration? we are starting to see that the recent panel we are with commissioner carr in talking about the exemptions of environmental remediation reviews as well as certain landmarks, there were city representatives in that meeting and i can tell you the thing that got been the most exciting about it was workforce and the ability to engage to put the

people to work as well. >> okay. james, do you see anything that congress can do going forward, the when it 15th congress, in terms of wireline or cable infrastructure that's going to be necessary for gigabit fiber and even necessary for the backhaul for 5g? do you see any promising vehicles on that front? >> well, i take some encouragement from what they just recently have done. i know a lot of this discussion focuses on 5g but i don't want us to forget about other technologies. the point that john made initially is right, which is all of these networks are going to start looking a lot like everybody else and we are all going to be using a mix of technology, whether that's doxies are wi-fi for 5g. people come consumers wake the choices based upon the services they want and infrastructure providers will provide the flavors of technology that

people want. consumers candidly a pretty indifferent to the type of technology. they just want the pain you want to get to work. one of the things i think that was set up in the legislation recently passed is really congress recognition that we do need a balanced approach when it comes to spectrum, both with respect to license, the spectral and make available to meet the needs of 5g but also to meet the needs of why five. when you consider all of these devices that we have that are connecting wirelessly, the fact that 80% of that traffic is going over wi-fi, that's a pretty strong amount of work and that workload is only going to increase over time as a blow for unlicensed wireless as well. i say that not to really try and argue that this is an either or because it's not. it's a both type of approach and i think the problem as i think

we all know with spectrum is you can't turn on a dime. you have to essentially go through a process of planning. you have to deal with incumbent users as you find them and try to plan out the long-range strategy over time. it's critically important that ntia and other parts of the federal government really take a long-term view and really put out what is our national plan with respect to both licensed wireless and unlicensed wireless. s4 is legislatively, things that they can do i think obviously with the amount of money that's now been put out, that is with a down payment as john suggests, it is going, the places where it is currently on -- it will take significant resources to get broadband to them. i think congress will continue to play an important role in oversight in making sure the fines it provides is used for

its intended purpose. i do think if you want to look at places for us to relook at broadband policy, i would sit one place that might be fertile territory would be the rules with respect to pole attachments, both to speed up the process by which there's an orderly effort to add new lines to polls, and also maybe the deal with something that congress didn't deal with in 1996 when it exempted municipal and co-op polls from the federal scheme that we have for poles so i think that would be two places to start. >> sticking with the issue spectrum unlicensed versus unlicensed. what kind of rules or thumbs of principle to take in approaching, how do we decide what kind of spectrum bands get allocated to one kind of use or

the other in terms of licensed or unlicensed? >> i think it really depends. it depends upon the publication, characteristics of the bands, who's in that band, what other uses are we going to have to contend with. i mean, the fact of the matter is i think we all recognize that the consumer demand for connecting versus via the wide variety of the devices we increasingly have in our homes and on our person just continue to increase. in some sense there is always going to be a desire for more spectrum, but there is no one size fits all. we need lower band spectrum,, mid-band spectrum, higher band spectrum, we have seen the fcc do some very important things with respect to the millimeter wave bands for particular types

of uses, but it is going to be a constant challenge for us and the regulatory agency to figure that out. but ultimately consumers will drive the demand for these services and hopefully that will give us some sense of where we need to find space to allow things like you to get wi-fi to grow. >> okay. does anyone have anything you want to respond or add to that? >> i agree with what a lot he said. we need more both wi-fi and license, unlicensed. they both add considerable value across the board. looking around this room i can tell you the wi-fi is pretty good our people are praying a lot. [laughing] may be a little of both. the sec, i think over the years, has taken a number of steps to

try to get this out. it's a bit of a challenge for the regulator because they are trying to make predictions based on what they think technology is going to go and would think intuitive and will go on whether think product development going to go, which you kind of want to be in the hands of the consumer and the auditors and in innovators on the private sector you want the government thinking it. there's a quote that sums attribute to wayne gretzky, that you want to skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it is. but the sec is like hockey. the fcc is the referee. it's always a challenge i think that we have learned a lot of things about where at least the sweet spot for some of these services are, unlicensed. clearly when you're at home in hotel at the office, and if i like this where you can more control a lot of the use that's going on. one of the characters each are not particular benefit of the

use of the spectrum. you do risk challenges of their as you put more and more demand. on the other hand, for unlicensed spectrum sorted for mobility that's a big plus. and the more sort of uncontrolled environment of tht when out in the public and were demand can spike up and down, although bit better suited for license because they carrier cn exclude others from the band. they do have exclusive use and, therefore, can control the quality of service that is being offered and that's, that can be very important especially as moving to 5g. i think the sec gets great credit for the way differences over the years. as james said it will just keep going on both sides and both hopefully continue to develop in a way that meet the consumers demand. >> i think on unlicensed side for the topic of this panel it's also important to leverage the unlicensed spectrum for pilots. we had conversations with the fcc on where of the appropriate

context to actually play around with unlicensed spectrum to do experimentation that may actually lend itself to closing the digital divide in unique ways that we may not identify through large scale rollouts. >> all right. let's move on to universal service real quickly, and john,, maybe i'll turn to you first. we've got mobility faced to auction, the connect america fund phase two options. with some of the things coming up for this year. -- auctions. we all set going forward, are the rule changes that need to be made or are you confident we can reach some of these rural areas through how that is set up? i mean -- >> i'll set think the sec does a very good job with auctions, the auction process. the way relook at the auctions is from a provider standpoint is

that we will have limited opportunity from a sentry link standpoint, and we declined i think two states basically during the process and myerson is that same funding will just track in the auction so it is still the same amount of funding. i'm not sure how much relief is going to give a better and what is and is wyoming, another is mississippi. i'm not sure how much that is going up but i think they are both good i guess gap fillers from the standpoint of seeing an incremental need and addressing it. there still a lot more to do and we are also interested to see if the bf cat three and of the mechanisms out there for us -- be a cap three. >> you mentioned the real utility service and having encouraging language, encouraging language in this language about overlays, government funding, networks to

be built on top of places where consumers are already served. does i i continue to be on isse on universal service going forward? do you find the same kind of encouragement on that front? >> i think we are encouraged by the direction that has been taken in cap, which is obviously there are probably things around the edges we would quibble with, but it seems like we're finally focused on really judging the effectiveness of the funds that we are providing based upon how many new homes are we signing up. up. and i kind of accountability is really, i think, i won't say it's been a sea change but it's been an encouraging development. we see it replicated in many states which are really following a more focused approach to funding that they

may provide to allow existing carriers to extend lines to communities that don't have access to broadband. and really giving us a new measuring stick for how we are actually accomplishing the task we set out to do. there's obviously lots of historical evidence where we've seen that funds are really not been used for their intended purpose and really go to places where broadband already exists. i do the changes that have been made at the sec to be really encouraging. i'd use models that states are following to focus line extensions have advocate fundig targeted to unserved areas to be a follow on to that. and a further follow one being congresses insistence that when we're going to spend the publics money through this pilot program that we ensure that at least 90% of the funding for any grant go to supply broadband households

that uncertain. >> okay. sticking with universal service but moving over to lifelike, nicol, in your remarks you talked about the proposal the sec has of self enforcing budget or harsh cap. that same proposal would limit lifeline subsidy support to facilities-based providers. what is your position regarding this aspect of the proposal, to limit lifeline support to facilities-based eligible carriers? >> i will summarize it as my mom would say. if it wasn't broken don't fix it. it's challenging because i think some of the assumptions that in the lifelike proposal right now, take the limitations facility-based providers, sort of regret some of the work done over the last couple of years to ensure more competition in the marketplace. you will now have a situation where may have to constrain competition and a hard cap that

presupposes some hypotheticals around use where in the beginning of this debate of lifeline before a couple years ago that conversation was the low use of lifeline in terms of capture rate versus the high use. it's important to sit back and look at what are the implications. i would argue some of the lifeline reforms are driven by a partisanship approach to this waste, fraud, and abuse which is not true. prior to the gl report there was conversation about the way is being reduced and the report was based on old data. i think it's important that we allow them to put in the national verify to reduce some of the redundancy. until you actually do some of that stuff it's very hard to go back in a program that is the only potential lever for people to get online. we don't want to find yourself in a situation particularly want to talk about closing the digital divide. the digital divide yes is about deployment. it is about infrastructure but

it's about people. people stand at the heart of what we're trying to solve. it's critical important that the program in congress reevaluate how we approach it is broken. the sec is not a social service agency. the sec is an able or to give people access. the prior proposal had areas in there that were going to facilitate the ability of people that social mobility by leveraging the benefits. we shouldn't make assumptions of again as i said earlier about how the poor live in this world when we are not poor. i would sit on hard cap and others i'm a big, big proponent of people and i think it's important we really look at some of a subliminal messages that are in that order that will potentially restrict, and what the point is over to james, but the uptick of affordability of people in urban committees, the effect of people in rural committees, people of color, poor, disabled and isolated.

i think at some threat to continue to discuss but i would really question us to put in some numbers come hypothetical numbers that may not be the measure for success for the program. >> nicol, i'll stick with you for one more minute. if we were to install a bat phone in chairman pai's office and you were addressed the issue of digital exclusion disconnectedness, i would imagine you touched we touched on the lifelike, perspective is anything else you would recommend to address digital exclusion now that where you into his chairmanship? >> the chairman is, i participated in a marginally but i participated not in the main committee but i think the chairman is moving in the right direction in terms of again putting the gap stopping place where we inhibit, we stop those barriers that traditionally kept people off-line. people have have more choices.

james is right. people can get online the way they want to come in more meaningful ways than i could before. i tell my kids i can't be chided interaction can but i can beat jet pack with atari because technology has changed. however, we are in the space or disruption is going to upset the apple cart. the repertory conditions, the graduate talk about today when you look at machine learning, when you look at algorithmic buy-in, when you look at those areas the cost of digital exclusion is going to, the big data analytics and other things. we have to be careful as a balance this conversation, the digital economy and the sharing economy are making up large portions of our gdp. the future work it depend on ability of people to be involved. the digital divide amplified barriers when you live in communities we don't have access to interface with new tools of technology. you want to talk about a cost to america, to actually not feel

5g, that have ubiquitous wireless access, not be able to get into rural communities, the cost to all of us will certainly be that they will be left behind. i kind of -- a marathon runner status of the above underpass forward thinking peace but rate is 30 go to, all of the certain to go to, regulation is to catch up with for the disruption is taking us versus us sitting back and try to figure it out. that pie has to be bigger because the needs have become bigger. >> okay. dede with the subject of moving on in terms of regulation, john, centurylink answer earlier incarnations of qwest and all those, you have a long track to to do with section ten forbearance to get rid of legacy telephone regulations that still apply that are still on the books, and we also this year will have a section 11 biennial

review i presume. do you see any candidates and trends of legacy refills that could still be taken off the books are always modified or reduced within the next year? is there anything that is a real contender left? >> i'll sit at a very high level, i think it's fairly simple from our standpoint. if you look at the rules we're dealing with forbearance problems, i will just say we have lost 70% of the market share across the board from a a voice and broadband standpoint and we are still have rules that are pretty far back in time. so any forbearance or rules that keep to james . i have industry is converging, something i touched on, any rules that can be forbear from beck and keep our segment of the industry basically still hamstrung in a wide open running at five and a competition would be at the highest level that we would ask for. >> okay, terrific.

i want to touch on the issue of net neutrality really quickly, an issue of legislation. could you describe, , john, what would be the essential elements of a legislative compromise on this issue? what would be the bare minimum of what we need to be in there? >> that piece of legislation setting the nectar jelly rules in motion with a lot of clarity would be a a good piece of legislation to move some of the barriers and uncertainty that are out there today, so that's one piece of legislation. ..

the blocking is one thing. i don't really know how much more could you done around back, but the main thing is that there be clarity among the rules. if there will likely have to be some revisiting of interconnection issues because we are still working under the telecom act interconnection rules and now we are in a world of hearing and unfortunately they're back to compensation for use of the network, which is an age-old debate. they will have to be some clarity around that. the last thing would be some form of regulatory backstop. the commission did not really deal with issues that cannot be negotiated fully between carriers and there's probably going to be some of that out there as we continue to move into that environment. and zero, a limited regulatory backstop or a least you could resolve some issues at the federal level would be something

that everyone would benefit from. >> tom, do you have anything to add on that in terms of a net neutrality legislative compromise? >> yeah, just the uniformity is a challenge to try to do this on a statewide basis. the problem is we have a hard time agreeing on whether -- what it looks like. i don't think we will see it this year. >> okay. there's some high-caliber legal firepower on this panel. we've seen at the state level seven net neutrality executive actions. we've seen executive orders, legislation. i mean, will though succeed? what should be the response? what should be the next steps in addressing this at the state level? >> look, i think it all fundamentally goes back to, you

know, this is really not a question of ability. this is a question of will. when we look at the online ecosystem writ large, which isps are certainly a part of, but not the only part of, i think we have the ability to set consistent standards and norms of behavior. the consumers want. short of going on the rooftops and shouting from the top of our lungs that the isp industry is interested in resolving this issue in a context that will promote continued investment in networks that we all, i think, agree, need to continue to grow and thrive. it becomes a vexing problem. it's like you are searching for a dance partner here. the fact of the matter is, you know, to your question as far as it makes no sense to have one

state has one interpretation of a particular role in another state has a different interpretation of a particular rule because no isp built its network bow wave. so, to the extent we want to have this conversation, we want to engage on it, we want to welcome rules of the road double discipline not just isp, but other online participation that night engaging crises that we would worry about its consumers. we are to have that conversation and we have to have that conversation at the federal level. it is always darkest before the dawn, but i remain hopeful that at some point we will get around to realizing that this is a problem that is fixable in that we can fix it. >> i'm not the lawyer, but i have watched this debate. i want to echo without taking a position now where it stands, i definitely think congress needs

to come to the table and have a conversation of where do we go from here at this point. picking up on the comments but i said earlier, what has the fact that my thinking is some of the caveats we need to think of that legislation. if we think of autonomous vehicles in other real-time applications, we may want to go through and talk about what does that mean in terms of public interest of innovation in the regulatory state. james also is quite right that the internet has been transformed without a start and stop button anymore and all these issues are converging in a way that we have to be sensitive to the fact that conversation has started a decade ago is not going to be relevant in the future if we do not figure out the intricacies of how the internet actually works. consumers are somebody set a really telling us how it works, but we are not paying attention to that and that is going to be

really important to move onto these other issues. >> terrific. we will open up to the audience spirit got five minutes for any questions. we have microphones coming around. >> good morning. great panel. i wanted -- when congress established the first night and provided specter on an elevated odds, do you expect tatian was that there would be some buildout. this would have buildout in now several years later, is there any evidence this is happening or do you see this as a solution to closing the gap in rural america? [inaudible] >> we need the representative to appear. you wanted about one ago?

i'm not familiar with the details. that was part of the goal was to get the sharing of spectrum between the public safety community and the private sector now working closely with the folks in commerce. i think it's still a wait and see. hopefully he can bring a lot of benefits, particularly in rural areas where the spectrum is less needed on a day-to-day basis for the public safety community, they should be made available for consumers and businesses in those areas. >> all right. do we have another question in the audience? i see rick zimmerman over there. >> inks. hopefully we are allowed to ask the moderator question. you asked about state preemption

and you have written about state preemption, so i'd be curious if you can tell the audience your view of whether the state net neutrality efforts will survive legal challenge. >> yeah, they are all over the place. all right, tough panel. they are all over the place of course. you have some state governors who have signed executive orders saying there's dates won't do business with internet service providers. nonetheless, they agree to run their networks the same way that they would have under the fcc title ii rules that were repealed. that narrow issue is one that i have written on a particular. it's our conclusion or at least my conclusion that these are highly problematic under supreme court's in market participant because broadband services are available to every customer. they usually have a kind of take

it or leave it kind of deal. go to one provider that has my neighborhood or i can go to whatever the alternative competitor and choose it or not. that is not something i get to do was to tell my provider how to reengineer their networks in order to serve me. the supreme court has a jurisprudential document very sensitive to the fact that yes, state government, local government can act like a participant in the market and buy yourselves, but they have to act in a manner consistent with other participants in the market. and so, i think it certainly runs into difficulties outweigh. there were a lot more wrinkles on this issue. we may be writing a memoir in particular particular. my colleague, randy may as written in one of his series on maintaining the matter is there because the fcc does have a provision in the restoring

internet freedom order that says if any state or local or government to reinstate the rules being repealed will be preempted. i think there is a commerce clause issue as well that is more complex and kind of yucky and i don't think of those things since law school days. i would actually consider that a potent argument as well that would recognize that these services are inherently interstate. they don't respect state borders. data flows around were goes. they are not engineered state lines. that is the moderator's answer and i sat on the microphone no one is going to be a leather challenge me on that. my boss is here to pull the plug on the all-star panel in transition as to what is next. i want to thank everyone here today on the panel. [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> okay, well the first thing i wanted to say is you only get

one question to the moderator per conference. i want to ask our next all-star panel to come up right now and we are going to transition right into that panel. there are a few muffins over on the side and a little bit of breakfast left. if you are hungry, grab that now. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> okay, we will actually start in two minutes. i'm going to make sure my

stopwatches working. within two minutes i will ask everyone to sit down again, please. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> okay. we are going to get started, so if the people to my right over the air will grab your food and then take a seat, please. it is really helpful when everyone will take a seat. i want to remind you all to tweet away. we appreciate that. and i will just mention one more -- one even be the last time, but we've got a few of our books out there, #update. i appreciated david rattled this morning reminding everyone that was the hashtag for the beginning of the effort to re-examine the communications act, which one day i bet will happen i'm sure. okay, i am delighted that we've got another round of all-stars

here and they are truly all-stars. in line with my convention, what i announced this morning, i'm going to give you just a brief introduction so you've got their bios in front of you. and then i'm going to ask them to speak for five minutes. we are going to go down the line alphabetically. i am going to hold them to the five-minute. after those initial presentations, i've got some questions. i want them to react to each other. i know they won't be bashful about that. and then we are going to save a little time for your questions as well. our first panelist today is jeffreya campbell. jeff is vice president of the americas of global government affairs for cisco. jeff, i hope i got that right. where he leads government

affairs at committees for cisco in the western hemisphere. i am just going to say this. jeff, i'll probably say one other thing about each one of these panelists. jeff and i have known each other for a long time, going back several decades. i can say without any fear of contradiction that jeff is one of the most knowledgeable people here in washington and probably in the country about communications matters. he's been at it a long time and always has done it well. next, we are going to hear from david. davida senior executive vice president of comcast and the company whose chief diversity officer. he has a broad portfolio of

responsibilities including corporate communications, government regulatory affairs, public affairs, legal affairs, corporate administration and community investment. he also serves as a senior counselor to the cpl. whenever i go over david's portfolio, it makes me wonder whether there's several thousand employees of comcast they might be able to eliminate just because of everything david is doing their. some of you remember when he was here last year, i had discovered that back in law school he was called the chief judge. i think i have that right. for any of those tough legal questions that i ask you not to direct to the moderator, this time i may send them over david wade. okay, next, i am pleased that we have with us kathleen brownlow.

kathleen is senior vice president and deputy general counsel public policy and government affairs. she has responsibility for the public-policy federal and state regulatory affairs and i trust in privacy and strategic alliances. it makes me think that maybe she's verizon's david cohen without broad portfolio -- he has. welcome to kathy. and then, last but not least, as nicole reminded us on the last panel, she did her own last but not least. but i'm doing it for chris. christopher lewis is vice president of public knowledge and leads the organization advocacy on capitol hill with other government entities.

part of joining in 2012, chris served at the fcc as deputy director of the office of legislative affairs and he advised the fcc chairman on legislative and political strategy. chris and i were doing a program together a couple months ago have been to be on c-span. we discovered sitting there in the green room that chris's father was actually an assistant basketball coach at duke university. i have a particular fondness for duke university. that was back when bucky waters was the coach. even though there are times when chris and i don't always agree on things like net neutrality or some other issues like that, we

have that duke connection. and can any of you believe that shot of greece in allen's that in and out of the basket twice and then rolled off? i still haven't fully recovered from that. we are going to go on. okay, we are going to start with just. please try and limit your remarks to five minutes. just coming you take off. >> great, thanks randy. so it's 2018. here we are talking about net neutrality again. i've been talking about this issue since 2002. as i recall back then, i didn't have any gray hair. i don't know about you. >> of course not. >> would've gone a long time on this issue in the run around in circles an awful lot and i would

like to think that we've learned a few things along the way. but i'm not really sure about that yet i think there are a couple things we have learned along the way. one is that television comedians probably shouldn't run telecommunications policy. another is that coming you know, slogans often when the way in washington. but to go back, i want to go back to 2002 for a second because i think it helps set the table for discussing where we are today and where do we go from here. that is in an era when almost nobody is talking about this issue, a few people sat down and thought about it for a little while. i'm not sure we were one of the smartest people in the world, but we did think about it and think about what the real problem is about what can and cannot happen on this interesting new medium of the internet. we thought they were just some fundamental principles are not to be out there that people

ought to operate by. and they weren't that complicated. we thought that people shouldn't block traffic. we thought people shouldn't throttle traffic announce a world where we are all going for more and more speed all the time. thank you, david. he got really speeded up. and also that people ought to be a wooded choose what they want to run on the internet, what applications they want to run and what they want to do. consumers not to know what it is they are buying and how their service operates, what happens with it, what are the parameters that might affect what they want to do with their internet connections. we wrote this all down, sent it off to the fcc and thought it was a good idea and we thought it was wrapped up with about.

we've had a lot of things happen in the meantime. but i would suggest if you think about where we are today in the grand universe of this debate come to some of the fundamentals, the ones i just talked about are very much indisputable. what we are really fighting about arguing about increasingly in this debate is two things. questions of law, who should regulate and how should they regulate. i would posit that they are the most interesting part of this debate because as long as there's someone doing it, we are going to be okay. second night, we are debating on the cutting edges of technology, issues of prioritizing traffic, new services, whether people can pay for that, whether they can't pay for that, whether some services should get out and was back in the abuse of the

constitution in the marketplace. i would argue in those cases, we need to look at two important things. one is we do want to make sure competition is preserved in the marketplace and we have a lot of laws on the books to do that. if we need market we can discuss that. we don't want to get into a world of restrict teen technology. banning types of usage is essentially the same thing is banning technologies. i think that is something else we've learned over time in this debate. just to sort of wrap up the five minutes that randy has us on here and we might be at a good inflection point where we can attempt to sort of think the agreements legislatively or regulatory and get down to all the things that people who discuss this issue all agree on, try to compromise on the

remaining issues, recognize that we don't want to foreclose the future. there are opportunities to legislate if necessary. the opportunities for both business models and for consumers to access things they want to choose. i want to say congress is the best place to do this, but that sometimes it's a very slow process. there was an awful lot of commonality on the debate and maybe one day we won't have it in all. >> i guess i would welcome that day. i should have said earlier that the title of this panel, but it is solutions for advancing the gigabit in the future, 5g

future. i want to talk about the panel as much. >> things come to randy. congratulations on your 10th conference. pretty impressive and again, you pick the right topic to draw panels of people to talk about it. i've got three basic points i make in five minutes. they are all premised on the fact that state-of-the-art networks are truly the foundation and i believe that america's future and how we make sure we preserve and grow our state-of-the-art networks and maximize innovation is ultimately the answer of the tabby of established for this panel. let's make no mistake about it.

we are world class broadband synagogue than and we've invested $1.6 trillion in building out these networks and without we invested private sector investment. without the private broadband providers, we would not have state-of-the-art networks. i would also say that without continuing investment in innovation, isps are not going to maintain our leadership position in the world as having stated the art and best in class brought in networks. thanks to those networks, we deliver the fastest broadband speeds for many of us. we are doing that through three-point line. a comcast we are offering gigabit speeds and by the end of this year we will be offering them in 100% of our foot print.

coming soon to a comcast network near you, we are already working on the next generation, which is full access, symmetrical multi-gig speeds going up and down, up to 10 gigs all through a privately supported risk capital network that we are building. for us, it is more than speed. we launched our ex-wives service, which is the fastest and most powerful advanced wireless gateway in the home, which gives you unprecedented control over your wi-fi services, those commercials are not just jokes. you can turn your wi-fi often take your kids talk to you during dinner. that is how we are enhancing family values. the integrity of the family unit. so, that is .1. .2 is the importance of finding

public policies that support private sector investment in the network. i think having a climate that encourages private sector investment is essential. the temporary misguided classification of isps as public utilities threaten eyesight goes as investment and creation. i would note that those who disagree with that statement has never run a business, never made or business decisions or investment decisions. there is unanimity on the corporate or whether it's in the broadband space or otherwise that having a light regulatory touch is essential to encouraging private sector investment. if we compare the regulatory environment for broadband in the u.s. versus the regulatory environment, for example, in europe, there is a reason why the level of private sector investment per person is

literally double the size in the u.s. as it is in europe. so there was restoration of this light touch regulatory framework, which has worked in the past and will work in the future. it is one of the major accomplishments of 2017. but as jeffrey said then i want to make clear again and kathy, unfortunately we can't say this enough times because no one's listening, but the solution here is bipartisan legislation that installs once and for all durable, enforceable net neutrality rules that will once and for all take this issue off the table. the game of regulatory ping-pong going back and forward as to who is in control of the fcc is arguably worse than having title

ii classification because the uncertainty that presents is the absolute worst environment to be able to make comments to be able to make investment decisions. and the third, my third point and i know randy and i apologize it is slightly off point, for me and for comcast and i think for most isps, this is just a fundamental article of faith, which is we have to do more than just have faster and faster internet. we have to make sure every american has access to the internet at matt has a deployment dimension to it and adoption dimension to it and i raise it because i think getting all americans connect to it is a fundamental digital democracy in the united states and we are not going to win this argument if we are leaving 25% or 30% of americans behind. one point we can expand on, but

something that i'm passionate about. i say it in front of every audience. i won't ask for a show of hands, but if you go by the dialogue in washington around universal broadband adoption, you would agree are dealing with a problem that is predominately if not almost exclusively a matter of getting broad and built out to rural american and indian reservations in places that don't have broadband. so we have a deployment problem in the united states. but it covers 8% of our population. 8%. we also have an adoption problem. that adoption problem is impacting 27% of america. we have more than three times as many americans not subscribing to broadband at home, even though it is built out in front of their homes as we have americans not subscribing to broadband at home because

broadband has not been built out in front of their homes. i am not saying we should ignore rural america. we should absolutely pursue public policy, private sector sentiments, private sector partnerships with the public. technology because we may never get wireline broad and to every corner of america. but please, please, let's not forget three times as many people who are not subscribing to broad and even though it's running in front of their home. a broad then plant is running in front of their homes did nicole talked about this a little bit on the first panel, but we have to have a public policy and private sector commitment that is equally focused on broad and adoption issues as well as broadband deployment issues. >> okay. on that note, thank you, david. it is your last point actually

is what we want to discuss. the title, the theme of this conference is connecting all of america. it all relates together. kathy, you are next. >> thanks, randy for inviting me. this is my first panel at a free state conference. not my first on net neutrality, but maybe the last. as we talk about before. i will keep my remarks brief because i think our discussion will be very interesting with a lot of interesting issues we are going to get to. i was going to start in a similar way when i was thinking about what i was going to say today, i was thinking back to 2003 which is roughly when the debate started, which coincided with the beginning of my career and how much has changed since then. we had a little discussion in our office about what kind of

mobile wireless service you had in 2003. you have a foot phone and basically 140 kilobits per second. that's when we started talking about these concepts and principles of openness that had changed somewhat over the years, but there's still a lot of commonality about what is important and what should be permanent in terms of protections for consumers. just think about the internet as we know it now and how different it is to 2003. you didn't have a google, did not facebook, amazon, companies that have become not just central to the u.s. or global economy, the central to what a consumer's experiences on the internet. all that happened while we were having discussions about openness at net neutrality neutrality and what is important for consumers. in some ways it doesn't make sense to go back and use the older terms and we have this economy that we are existing in

now where we all have very complex relationships with each other, where regulators are looking at issues from different areas. it is important to see how much change has occurred and david went through it in terms of broad band in the wireline not her, but on the mobile side what we are poised to see right now when we talk about 5g in the transformation to the economy that's going to come going to comment innovation that will come from 5g. so how do we get there? we need to get past net neutrality. there are many critical important issues that chairman piatt, administrator reveler working on right now. they will bring a spare. the only real way to do that is to have legislation that puts in place permanent protections for consumers that are legally durable, that makes sense across the industry that allow for the investment that got us in 2003 to where we are today.

the path there is probably a little unclear right now, but it's critical i don't think we can lose sight of that. there's a lot of will and motivation on all sides of the debate. no matter what companies talk to, so i'm hopeful that we can get there. that is really where we need to land. >> thank you, kathy. now we will turn to chris. i just want to emphasize i'm very pleased that chris is here. he has obviously he and his organization's public knowledge have a different view on some of these things and that is why it is important for him to be here. many of you have been to many of our conferences and we always value having a diversity expressed and in my view, that is the way you get educated in

so chris, take it away. >> thank you, randy. i feel a bit like a tar heel in kennedy stadium. [laughter] i do appreciate you having me here. the only way we resolve this issue is really what the title of the panelists about, getting past net neutrality is to ensure that we have that totality. the only way we do that from a policy standpoint is to get stakeholders together to agree that we have achieved that. unfortunately, over the years if you look at the history and just start to give us some of the history of net neutrality, going back to chairman powell and his freedoms than absurd and subsequent efforts to enforce net neutrality at the fcc. every time we try to do so, we

see an isp challenge the ability or the power of the fcc to protect an open internet. and so i think when we think about what it takes to get past this issue on a policy basis, we have to have folks agree to what net neutrality is an outside the beltway there's broad consensus about what that is. only inside the beltway is that a debate. and then, we need when we have net neutrality, when we have strong roles in strong protections that we had under the 2015th order, that can be upheld in court like the rules in the 2015th order that are popular in allow for the investment and by the folks on the edge like the 2015 rules did. when we have that in as you can tell i like the 2015 rules. when we have that, we can move on to taking care of these other issues that i think are

extremely that were brought up. the great what net neutrality is, bright eyed rules that protect proactively against content, protect against prioritization schemes that allow for isps that are now getting bigger and bigger emerging with companies to prefer the content that they owed over other competitive content. rules against those things are the core of net futurology and it is why when protecting net neutrality at the fcc was challenged by isps in the past, the powell freedoms, the jankowski rose from 2010. it's why we ended up at the title ii framework in 2015 because that's what the court pointed to to be upheld under the current law. folks on the panel here asking for legislation now that they've successfully eliminated the only

rules that were able to be upheld under current law. it can be done. there are different ways to get their. i would suggest that the easiest way is the current resolution that has been introduced to restore the 2015 rules since we found that they were strong, worked for the industry cover work for consumers and were upheld in court. that is one way and probably the simplest and fastest way to restore net neutrality and move past it. if folks wanted to put forward other types of legislation, we need to protect the same things. that's what consumers expect. that is why you see so many folks writing in the state legislature responded to constituents doing all sorts of rings at the state level that should have been handled by the fcc at a federal level. we need to remember what their

protections are, legislation would have to do that. technology changes too quickly for congress to keep up with every innovation and to allow for innovation on all parts of the internet at the network level with the isps and with providers, it is important we have empowered regulatory to protect consumers and competition. that's always been the fcc's mission. it was a radical decision to decide that they no longer were in the practice of protecting consumers over broadband and want to put it over to the federal trade commission. it needs to be restored. that can also be done through legislation. what we don't want to see his legislation against this narrow net neutrality in exchange for losing the reduction, things

like privacy that has been a long tradition. things like protecting against cost and price gouging and preserving your service, which we've seen from some internet service providers the last few years. protecting competition so independent voices can be heard and seek out other competitive tools and platforms online and make sure that the network is reliable, that we don't dial back for downgrade to their protections and the expectations that networks are reliable and services go down or changed or even that we don't lose some of the things people expect those networks can do. we can do this if we were together and agree these are fundamental communications. >> thank you, chris. i was right about there being a

diversity of opinion and that is what we want. you know, we are going to stay with the net neutrality issue a little while and then move on to some other things. i did hear that kathy's sad that the path, i think this is a direct quote, the path is unclear on how to move forward on the hill but she favored legislation. i did hear chris make a pitch for the congressional review act legislation, but assuming for the sake of argument that is a nonstarter among our other panelists here, if we are trying to actually resolve this issue right here today while we are together, i want to try this. you know, the isps do say that

they are in favor or don't object to certain elements. they fall into the rubric of net neutrality, blocking, degrading and most of the major isps in conclusion to what was represented here will say that. we are going to talk about paid prioritization. my question, chris said he would like to see the rules reinstated. they just explain, just going to have maybe one of you were to have you explained why if you are amenable to many or some of the facets of net neutrality that chris favors, what was in your mind so wrong with the 2015

rules, just explain not so we get that on the table and then we will move forward. >> will take a shot at that. so, we speaking for comcast and speaking for the industry, we didn't have objections to the most than the 2015 order. we did have objections to certain things added into the substance that had never in the history of the debate of net neutrality been a part of net neutrality until tom wheeler and president obama came along and decided to make them part of that neutrality. the general conduct standard being the most obvious thing that really has nothing to do with net neutrality in its history and interconnection is another possibility. a more complicated question may

not be a fundamentally philosophically central to the debate. but the biggest was the source of authority relied upon to impose those rules and that was classifying broad and title ii of the telecommunications act, which the industry and i believe almost every serious economist looking at this would uniformly raise your hand and say that classifying broadband is a public utility. classifying isps is a public utility and using title ii is a source of authority to these rules is a disincentive and because of the hundreds of other things that can be done to isps because they are then classified under title ii. by the way, we are not new to this discussion. when tom wheeler was considering

the rules, we were on capitol hill say must legislate. after tom wheeler did his rules, we are per on capitol hill saying let's legislate. the authority issue says in court proceedings, this is not constitutional authority. it is not written in the 10 commandments. statutory authority means congress has the ability to fix it. henry waxman came close in 2010, fall of 2010 and now we've been consistently saying is let's let congress do its job. they are elected to legislate. they should create a new title for broad band. they can impose and by the way, chris, we are fine with specific rules, defined rules, with fcc jurisdiction. we've got no problem with that. there is a consensus among most

reasonable legislators among the industry that it is time to put these rules in place and move on. when you are talking, you said this is beyond the point where it is about the rules itself. you said some people say it's about law. i don't think it's about law. there were two things. i'm not sure you got to the second thing. i would say what this has become is all about politics. this is all a political game afoot at all and that's why nothing is happening. >> chris, i'm going to give her a chance to come back in a moment, but i want to stick with david and master david, castling can add to this if you would like. i am just going to quote from communications daily.

i know i have this right. you just recently within the past week and i think it was maybe the media institute reported cohen sought net neutrality legislation to end the game of ping-pong indicating his company might be up into no paid prioritization as long as they could do specialized services. a spokeswoman noted he wasn't making any formal proposals, close quote. so here is my question. i think it is clear that prong of net neutrality is more of a sticking point and that is what

i believe. so maybe you can clarify for us and maybe your spokeswoman not even here to add to this. what does comcast, you know, ultimately, you know, people have to put their cards on the table here. what is yours sort of bottom line and what do you mean? explain to the audience were your position is unpaid prioritization and weather services that help you resolve that and if so how. >> happy to do that. it is a proposal because in by the world of politics and is dead on arrival because i'm

making the proposal. around bipartisan legislation, which is so-called paid prioritization. we've had a lot of discussions within the industry and with tech companies we agree for paid prioritization and we had a limited exception to the specialized services, which i think is the 2010 order in the form of which was in tom wheeler's 2015 order. there is a recognition that something might come along paris

proconsumer dad is a specialized service available to every user of the internet that would be in consumer interest and in the public interest. and so what i said, it was actually the aca conference was an example of how i truly believe that if people would sit down and talk about this and stop playing politics and stop engaging in political rhetoric incited what are the issues where we agree and where are the issues we don't agree, that you can get to agreement even on something as contentious as paid prioritization. i believe that is the case and it just requires legislators sitting around a table and having a conversation about it. i would note for the record that

greg walden's draft net neutrality legislation, which he has floated and has yet to have any democrat willing to sit down with head and discuss it contains an out and out prohibition not within a specialized services exception. that is my evidence that there is a willingness to talk about his that they would sit down at the table and say what do we need to be able to reach a consensus on legislation. >> that actually sounds like ms. and as we go along, we will speed up these answers a little bit

>> we've been clear in our discussions with stakeholders, but more importantly with customers exactly what we will do were not due and what would support or not support with paid prioritization. if you go on the verizon.com, you will see commitments that spell out our commitment to openness and what we've said we will or won't do when it comes to paid prioritization. we don't use that term in our commitments because that is not a term shock in the outside d.c. most people don't have any idea what it means. they know what they are concerned about. the fast lane and slow lanes. we have been clear from the beginning that's important to our consumers and we committed to them what we will do and not do. i think that is a carryover when we have discussions about legislation. congress comes up with language, not companies. we are willing to be part of any debate over that kind of language that clearly will be part of whatever legislative package eventually takes shape.

but again, that is something we've been open about for years and we will be part of that debate. >> i am going to go to jeff quickly and then back to chris for his response. >> paid prioritization is one of the most misunderstood issues that is out there. i wish the press would stop writing fast lanes bowling. the internet has no lanes. do not exist. traffic either goes or it doesn't go. it moves at the speed of electrons or the speed of light. when there is congestion, you either dropped the package randomly or you drop them intelligently by using some sort of prioritization scheme. i would posit that there are a lot of benefits to intelligently and deciding what traffic has better volume service than other things. i will give you two examples, one of which is crucial and one of which is mundane, the very important, too. the first is a guarantee of

other people against paid prioritization are hugely in favor of paid prioritization and then it would start having surgery occurred across the electronic networks. do you want us to be prioritized. you want them to get through and work right. there is a benefit to doing that. it's not an inherently bad thing. it is good technology. the second example is one we live with all the time. my boss loves video now and will always want video whether i am sitting in the office or not or face timing. sometimes that comes through beautifully. sometimes it doesn't come through beautifully and sometimes it's like turn the video off before reduce the connection. that is the kind of experience where you have real-time live communication with audio and video going on wary quality of service can make the difference in whether the service is good or not. it is valuable to have an incentive for the people who own

the infrastructure to create the capability to make a better experience for consumers. the people who benefit from not should pay for it. they caused it, they should pay for it in the one sent to network. the only issue we have to worry about is whether it's used for anticompetitive purposes. rather than banning technology because that is what a ban on paid prioritization is, essentially banning the use of this type allergy. we should talk about whether technology is being used for good or bad. if it's being used anticompetitive way, we can write rules or use the existing mom for both to address the situations. there's a lot of benefits that come from the use of prioritization and service technology and i think it would be a real mistake for a country to walk away from not as the rest of the world isn't walking away from it. >> chris, take a couple minutes and respond if you like.

>> this is the right topic to be discussing because it is the thing i hear the most pushback on is on the hill when i see legislation we quite frankly can't get behind. bans on paid prioritization, but it took away the latitude for the fcc to actually do anything outside of the narrow rules. when you do that, there's all sorts of other other protections to mention a previous panel, someone mentioned in this panel that the sec would be out of the business of protecting consumers and the broadband. that is one concern. ms. black or does not have a ban on paid prioritization. that is the one that's got attention this year in this congress. on the specifics of what prioritization is in specialized services, it is important to remember in restoring the 2015 rolls through the cra or try and

legislation, which this group would prefer, do it either way. but if you do it, let's remember 2015 rolls out an allowance for reasonable network management, which is joke was jack was describing, that things in real time need to managed properly by the isp. .. we use the term average people understand what we're talking

about when were talking about prioritization and putting traffic into the link is us avoid doing it. there's other ways. you can prioritize by not having data count against the dave camp or other forms of usage-based pricing. we've seen this from comcast and we criticize that. that led to them changing their policy. because it was a threat of enforcement from the fcc which a bright line rules. so the situation we're in is a sticky predicament and we need to restore those rules so it can have the allowance that jeff was describing where isps can make these decisions but when it comes to out and out harmful discrimination on the network by isps that you have the latitude to make specific rules to deal with those as business practices develop and change. >> okay, thanks.

i'm going to stick with you to start this next discussion. i want to talk about privacy regulation, and that's what we might call adjacent area to this or part of it. we will try to focus these answers fairly tightly. some have maintain the commission's december 2017 order leaves isps subscribers unprotected with regard to privacy protections because the ftc cannot adequately do the job and the fcc is not protecting privacy. i think that you and your colleagues have been of that persuasion a bit. you know, now just in the past week with all of this controversy about facebook. when learning more about their practices, you know, , and how

they do or don't protect data. for some the third part of the equation all along. i want you to fairly briefly just tell us what you're thinking is now in terms of protecting data, either isp subscribers or also facebook users and google users, and now that job should be done. >> sure. i'll try to be brief. we were in favor of when the rules were created the fact just acknowledge the need great specific rules for broadband that were appropriate for isps to protect privacy. those rules have been repealed and what that left us with and the rhetoric we saw during that fight to repeal those rules was folks wanted to have an even playing field between isps,, same rules for them as you for other providers. we have that now. when you look at what's

happening with facebook that is dangerous. when you have self regular skiing which is how the federal trade commission works, where they're very little no power to create proactive also privacy but they can enforce after the fact when there's been something that's been violated against a specific privacy principles that a company is laying out for itself. that leads us to a company like facebook or you could also see this with an isp because they are so focused on innovation which want to see, but they also think about the unintended consequences that come with the technology and what their grading. take a social network, for example, i'd like senator warner describe what was seen with facebook as the dark underbelly of social networks because what comes with responsible upgrading a social network is understanding how you manage that data, how you collect that data, if you collect the data and who stated your collecting and u.s. access.

by running a social network you have responsibly to protect that and we've seen that not protected in this case with facebook. the same goes for isps. they run a different business. they are not in the business of social networks, they are in the business of communications networks. what are the expectations for privacy on those that should be enshrined at a proactive rules. that's what we saw the cut repealed and i think we want to see that in both instances with all layers of the net with you on the edge or whether you are a network. >> i'm going to give kathy and the david a chance just to touch on this issue and i'm going to ask jeff an entirely different question. >> i think it's important without for while it's important to the federal framework for privacy regulations that applies across the board and applies all companies that compete against each other equally. having sector specific regulation, if there's anything this past month for the past

year shown us is, that does make any sense, we need federal legislation that also sets the uniform policy across the country. one of the things we're seeing is individual states, localities, putting in regulations in place that are not the same across the country that just confuse consumers and in the been focusing on one specter, sector rather than the other. we would support that. i'm thinking now with the revelations that come to light we will probably see more likely to see some sort of legislative effort at least at a think for consumers that would be a good thing. >> david. >> i'm going to be uncharacteristically short and just to say that i agree with kathy. >> can i write that down? >> that is the right direction. not being sarcastic but welcome to the crowd can we been up for two or three years in thing that we should have a uniform privacy regime that apply to the entire internet. and you can't do that to the fcc

or the ftc. you've got to do it through legislation. there may be an opportunity here and that's our look at the facebook situation to create some momentum around legislation that protects consumers, interests in the internet in net neutrality, in privacy, and data security. there may be an opportunity since i do think the primary problem here is political, to bring democrats and republicans together, each of whom have their own interests in this broader space to create a significant piece of legislation to protect consumer rights on the internet. >> just to be clear -- >> speak into mic. >> sorry. to be clear i think we talked about, david talked about uniform protections i think we want comprehensive protections. in some instances certain types of information perhaps or certain sectors are more sensitive than others.

that's why we have sector specific regulations for privacy in healthcare, and banking and traditional in communications networks. i think we want to respect the uniformity to protect privacy but there's nothing wrong with doing it through different agencies. your right congress can make this happen. congress has done before. they did in setting up this kind of hub and spoke model of sector specific, some level. and then ftc that has broad jurisdiction but we heard authority, or power. >> thank you. go ahead. sometimes what i'm listening, it reminds me that basketball shot rolled in, looks like it's going income rolls around again and then it might pop out. >> i will get to the point eventually. >> okay. of what you switch gears for a minute and maybe throw jeff a curveball but i think it's important. there's a lot of discussion now

that's going on about the administration's trade policies and tariff policies. as you know from the introduction of jeff earlier he has global responsibilities. cisco is one of our nation's technology leaders. if you just a minute or two, or take just a minute or two, if you have a reaction to any of this, i'm sure we would like hear it. >> this is a tough question than a privacy question, randy. >> that's why i asked it. >> no, i think, you know, we are very committed to free trade and committed to open markets. it's a two-way street. you have to all countries and everybody working together in a global trading system that creates a level playing field wall for competitors but also across the countries and that. there are often challenges and

many of the challenges have been identified by the administration and some of the issues in section 301 report. i think the area that i the greatest concern is the use of force weapons to try to deal with this problem. terrace are very crude ways of dealing with the problems in the international trading system that need to be addressed and will often tend to penalize people who are not at fault for the problems that will harm consumers because a century at the end of the day tariffs our taxes of those caustic are passed on to consumers. and a very crude tools that don't actually solve the specific problems that they're trying to address going forward. and so i think, you know, i would suggest a stronger way of dealing with these issues is trying to work directly with the

areas that are relevant to concern from whether we are having intellectual property loss, whether companies are being pressured or forced into doing things that they don't want to do in order to gain market access that they should have market access. i think we need a more nuanced approach that is headed towards a goal of creating open markets and a level playing field rather than managing markets via tariffs open market access agreement spirit we've we tries many times in the past come you know, famously with autos. it didn't work particularly well and i don't think it's going to work particularly well in this instance. and so those would be my thoughts. we get to see what the full implication of these decisions are going to be. >> thank you. i just want to end up with this question to the panel because as i have said earlier after

david's remarks come it's not all about net neutrality, the theme of the conference is connecting all of america. i'm going to just ask you about the fcc's lifeline proposals. some of you in this room know, maybe many of you, i said this earlier, we are proud free market advocates at the free state foundation, and we think we're consistent. i've always actually been a longtime advocate myself of a lifeline program that is affected and works. we of course don't want waste, fraud, and abuse, but to me that's been a safety net program that if run properly is important in achieving the goal of connecting all americans. in this case, low income

persons. so the commission has proposed those. i've actually commented and questioned them, but specifically with regard to the lifeline proposals and whether requirement that was only facility-based providers can participate and receive the support, do you have comments? maybe kathy and chris might be the most likely candidates. >> yeah, i mean, we participate in a proceeding. our focus has always been of the national verifier database and making sure that is up and running. that was really important reform a lot of reasons that not only helped eliminate some of the waste, fraud, and abuse but also just make the program more streamlined, easier to participate, more fair. that's what we've been focusing on with our engagement at the commission, similar to what dr. turner-lee said before. >> chris, you're going to get the last word.

>> on lifeline i also agree with dr. turner-lee tickets aboard we don't let a passion for limiting waste, fraud, and abuse which is important to lead to policy decisions that limit a program that is essentially a safety net, like you said, randy. where it leads to caps on lifeline program, it can be harmful to the folks who need it, where it leads to dialing back the availability of companies that may offer service, or even where it leads to not moving to a path where you can have standalone broadband funded by the lifelong program to match the direction the industry is going with this convergence i think is something we would be concerned about. you can do that and you can look at waste, fraud, and abuse at the same time. i would agree with what kathy said.

>> hold your applause if you will for just a moment and a going to tell you what's going to happen next. as soon as this panel is dismissed here, we have our next speaker who i am pleased to introduce in just a moment, but after administrator neomi rao speaks, then as many of you know that wall over there is going to magically open up. we've got a really nice buffett there. i've tried to explain kathy and my wife and myself that this is not really a wedding, but it doesn't have to be done like that. it is, it's a nice buffett. if you didn't register and you showed up anyway, you know, maybe as as a courtesy you cane to the end of the line. [laughing]

you know, make sure there's enough food for everyone. okay, now please i want you to join me in thanking this panel. it was great. we appreciate it. [applause] >> stay in your seats and we will have one more speaker before lunch. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> great, good to see you. okay, i'm going to ask everyone to take their seats again and we're going to try to stay on schedule so we start our lunch. if everyone will take their seats, we would appreciate it. then as you know, of course,

during the lunch session with god the conversation with commissioners brendan carr and michael o'reilly, the fcc commissioners. i know that will be an exciting and interesting educational part of the program. okay, it's now my pleasure to introduce to you neomi rao -- and my pronouncing your name right, i hope? she is administrator of the office of information and regulatory affairs. that's the omb office focus on regulatory review, and i hope the administer doesn't mind me saying this traditionally that position has been referred to also as the administrations

regulatory czar, because of the functions it has within the administration in terms of overseeing regulation. administrator rao has a distinguished background on the faculty of george mason university law school, now the scalia law school, and really is one of the leading scholars in administrative law. so i'm going to let you get the rest of her bio from the program, but i will just say this. as many of you know i have been involved in the administrative law area myself now for many decades, and so i'm familiar with the work of neomi rao and

what she's done and how she has contributed to the scholarship on administrative law. so it's exciting to have you here today to talk about the administration's regulatory policy. thank you. [applause] >> thanks so much, , randy, for that nice introduction into this free state foundation for inviting me to join you for this conference. i understand actually that now the only thing standing between you and once i will try not to be too long-winded about administrative law. so in my remarks, i wanted to just take a step back from some of the more specific topics of the panels to focus more generally on regulatory reform and how many of the efforts of this administration are connected to economic growth and

the rule of law and individual liberty. so in this first year of the administration, more than a year now, agencies have been working hard to identify problems with existing regulatory framework and a limited or streamlined regulatory burdens that are duplicative or outdated or just simply ineffective. a little more than a year ago resident trump issued executive order 13771 which ushered in a ship in the right way landscape by calling for the reduction of two regulations for each new one and a zero regulatory cost cap for agencies. that executive order as well as a number of other executive orders really focused the agencies on the drag of accumulated regulation. in previous come across previous administration with a democratic or republican we've seen the burden continue to increase and we had shifted that all around. just to the end of the fiscal year last year we eliminated 22

regular actions for for each new one and according to my offices am frankly quite conservative calculations we have seen over $8 billion in regulatory costs. agencies over john stumpf even more far-reaching reforms and had commit to retreat -- reduce obligatory costs further. so from our perspective we consider these reforms to be a very important component of promoting economic growth and prosperity, , principles i knowi very important to this organization. we believe that the excessive government regulation can statement the economy and in the past few months we've seen a lot of economists and commentators, even the "new york times" .2 only between the past years economic growth and the slowdown of regulations. i think that's apart because administration is advancing red tory policies that looks first to private market solutions and once to leave individuals,

farmers, businesses as free as possible to work hard to innovate and to create the technology of the future. one of the most important practical effects of our efforts has been a change in the environment. i hear frequently from business and individuals they are no longer worried about arbitrary burdens that are being imposed by guidance documents or by substantial new costly regulations. we help individuals and copies can proceed with confidence when not going to spring on new requirements that are going to impede their growth. these principles are especially salient in the area of emerging technology, in telecommunications and other sectors where the success of these ambitious ventures will depend at least in part on a regulatory system that cannot stand in the way of progress. so why do we start with the basic and give the government shouldn't be picking winners and losers through regulation? we don't want to regulate in a

way that phrases technological development or stifles innovation through government prescriptions. this year we're focused on more deeper cost-cutting reform efforts, particularly about this topic of emerging technology which down to florida at the space counts were number of people spoke about the raggedly burdens that are impeding the development of space exploration. at this conference people working to improve connectivity and advance the future of telecommunications. with respect to telecommunications related regulations in particular, i will review that if you different ways. we review the actions of the ntia which is the commerce department of the rural utility service which is within the usda, the department of agriculture. we don't formally review rules from the fcc because it is an independent agency that we do work with the fcc and the number

of ways. for example, we review the agenda of a regulatory and d roy cooper actions we and approve their information collections. and the paperwork reduction act when it things we do is review all the funds agencies put out on the public so we work with the agency to make sure they are minimizing the reporting and disclosure requirements they are imposing on the public. i think it's interesting that fcc chairman pai who was a law school classmate of my also at chicago is working on creating this office of economic analysis. we anticipate this office is going to build on some of the long-standing economic principles that are used in regulatory review. we want to make sure that part of this process agencies regulatory to solve an actual problem, such as the substantial market failure. as part of good regulatory practices with want agencies to

identify and consider alternative regulatory approaches and to analyze the s and benefits of those benefits. we want to make sure that a robust analysis of the costs and benefits of the rules, taking into account the public comments and stakeholder input. this will be a really important step for the fcc to improve the economic analysis of the regulatory process, and at oira one of the things we do with one of the agencies is independent and executive branch agencies is serve as a resource for advancing their market-based regulatory reform. i just wanted to mention as an administration we are focused on pulling back these regulatory burdens but we we're trying too this in a very responsible and beneficial way. we are not in the business of dismantling important health and safety regulations and we proceeded with deregulation

carefully. we apply the same cost-benefit standards to regulatory antiregulatory action which means in a essence that for the regulatory action the benefits have to outweigh the costs so we're only deregulating where that results in net benefits to the public. it's also interesting sometimes people have said to me isn't this just about helping big businesses? from my perspective oftentimes these migratory frameworks are put in place by powerful interest groups and they enter and then create barriers to entry for smaller businesses. the limit competition and, of course, as a result then ray may substantially the costs of goods and services for all of us. we are focused on lifting burdens that are just no longer working. maybe say all of it about why i think some of these reforms are also so important. to the rule of law.

we are very concerned that obligatory policy in general follows clear legal principles which allows the notice, allows the public to have notice of the regulatory obligation and provides a clear and stable framework for planning. i think we do this and if you different ways. what of the first questions we ask an agency that is looking to regulate or the regulate is to make sure what they're doing is consistent law. we work with agencies to make sure that they're interpreting statutes to mean what they say and want to respect the lawmaking power of congress by not expand the authority of the executive branch. many of the statutes under which agencies regulate are very open ended but we want to make sure agency to act as if they have a blank check from congress to make law. even when an agency has legal authority one of the things we have focused on a great deal is the notions of fairness and due

process. something we have been working on with the white house counsels office. we want to make sure agency is not imposing new requirements for guidance document for speeches or faqs with trying, we are really working to change the obligatory culture so that when an agency issues guidance and they are not using it as a backdoor to imposing new regulatory requirements without the type of administrative process and accountability that's necessary for illegitimate regulatory system. many agencies have taken this to heart and are working on elaborate project to identify and to catalog all of the guidance documents. it's much harder than it even sounds. some agency officials have said to me we don't even have any idea what guidance we have or how many guidance documents we have. we don't know whether all are. seems like for public notice it's a good idea or at least that's the does what guidance documents are still being

applied to their respective businesses. from my perspective, i'm a professor of constitutional law, reform also promotes more constitutional government. the centralized review process that oira imposes provider greater accountability for regulatory policy which in terms promote democratic values. we ensure agencies are promoting presidential priorities and that regulatory policy uses consistent methods and consistent emphasis across the government. and, of course, in this particular administration one of our primary focuses has been on reducing the overall regulatory burden and that an initiative that oira works with with all of the agencies on. and just finally, i think reform promotes economic growth. i think it promotes rule of law values but perhaps most important lifting many of these

unnecessary burdens result in greater individual liberty. government regulation of course sometimes conserve important health and safety goals but congress has already ensured we live in a highly regulated society. we want to make sure when the government is acting, it serves a a purpose. we don't regulation to be a solution in search of a problem. so many regulations on the books that are duplicative or outdated, regulations just keep piling on top of regulations. giving the government out of the way and lifting regulatory burdens, restores more freedom to individuals and families and businesses. we believe a more lawful, fair and limited regular choices and allows economy to grow and innovation to flourish. it helps all americans by trusting them to make decisions that will result in greater prosperity and happiness and less reliance on the government. so intelligent mitigations and elsewhere where it limiting regulatory policy for the american people based on freedom

and free markets. thanks very much for your attention. [applause] >> well, thanks so much, neomi. that was terrific. in years past we often had someone here to talk more generally about regulatory policy in addition to the telecom focus, and even some of your predecessors in your position. so it's wonderful to have you here. we've got time for just maybe one or two questions before we break for lunch and administrator graciously agreed to answer some. i think this can be quick but when we are putting together your bio, by the way i should've

mentioned neomi clark on the supreme court for justice thomas. i mean, i could have gone on but i confess that when we got to the senate that said she was a former professor of structural constitutional law, i did have -- sentence -- i have one of our proofreaders tell me that must be wrong because should never heard of structural constitutional law and you just mentioned that and i think i have an idea about what that might mean, but maybe it just a sentence or two tell us why that course is called structural constitutional law. >> sure. i guess to distinguish it from some of the of the constitutional law, the structural constitutional, the structure of the constitution relates to thinking about how the text and structure of the constitution set forth the powers of the three branches of the government. we focus on article one,

legislative powers, article two executive powers and, of course, article iii of the judicial and how they interact with each other. something i've been very interested in. i've worked in all three branches of the current and one of the most important things is to make sure there's a balance between all three branches of the government and that they are all exercising their respective powers but kind of within their boundaries. >> right. okay i'm going to ask whether there are any questions for the administrator. i've got microphones. without microphones here in the audience. do we have any questions? well, i'm going to ask one more then, and then we will break up. i mean, you initially mentioned the two for one effort that president trump announced very early on, and i remember wasn't

too long ago, a couple months ago i think there was a white house ceremony in which there was some recounting of what would have been accomplished. but you know, as someone who is in government himself over at the fcc and as absurd for a long time, i mean, it seems like that's a very noble but incredibly difficult goal to achieve. tell us how you are measuring that and keeping track of it, and i guess keeping on the agencies do try and meet that, if you would. >> sure. it is a difficult and ambitious goal, and i have to be honest. we worked really hard i think to exceed either what the president set out of the executive order but it's been a lot of hard work. on the part of the agencies and

on a part of my office. [inaudible] >> i think one of the things it did -- >> maybe i think he's asking -- let's grab -- >> okay. i think one of the things the executive order did is it really focus agencies on this idea of slowing down the imposition of new regulatory burdens and really think about what regulatory burdens can be pulled back. and i think part of the reason its work is we've issued a number of guidance documents of how this is supposed be implemented, boyer asking agencies to look for regular burdens in whatever form they may arise that could be guidance documents or paperwork burdens are of course also regulations. and i think all of information

of how we're doing this is on a website to we've been pretty transparent about the regulatory and derail tory action. the president cares about this issue and it talks about at cabinet meetings that he talks about it in his speeches. i think that has made easier for us to make sure that agencies are being there deregulatory birds. there's a lot of scope for regulatory reform and its agencs are not being forward leaning we have lots of ideas for them, and, you know, to the process of the agenda and our regular interactions he with agency were kept at the pressure to make sure this is working. >> okay. well, before i think administrator rao one more time, i just want to mention that when we do break we are going to have a buffett lunch to my left. i already see commissioner carr

and commissioner arbeit are here so we will be starting the conversation with them just about around 12:40 or so, , maye 12:45 so you want to go to lunch. and the nature i guess i'm just monday administer to matters, someone asked me a and i would just pass it on, that several of these of the facilities, the men's rooms are out of commission. i've noticed that myself here this morning. but apparently there are another, there is another men's room available on the stairs, on the next floor so we can make sure we get everyone here ready for lunch. now, with that said, i want to, you know, neomi, , earlier this morning when your administration colleague with your, david redl from ntia, i told him i wanted to present him with a small token of appreciation for being

here. i emphasized it was really small because it's basically this pen that i have here. but look, here's something to make you feel better about that. back when i was -- [laughing] -- what i was during 2004-2005 of the aba section of administrative law and regulatory practice, our tokens of appreciation that you we have these little cubes that had enclosed in them supposedly apa, the administrator procedure act, that little cuba. i think this pen from the free state foundation is worth every bit as much as that little cuba within apa. and it does have the unique ability, you'll find this out when you use it, every time you write regulatory reforms, it comes out automatically in all caps and in red letters it so

that should be good. okay, with that i want you to thank, join me in thanking neomi rao. [applause] >> and we're going to go to lunch. hopefully that will open over there. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

a brief break in this daylong discussion on telecommunications policy. we will continue with live coverage in about 30-40 minutes. remarks from fcc chair ajit pai from earlier during the conference. >> good morning. thank you to randy may and the free state foundation for your good work for this opportunity to help kick off today's events. the rising people eat more than a long video is anyone who makes them wait to hear from david redl so i plan to keep this short. the theme for today's form is connecting all of america. those in this room probably know this is also been the prevailing theme of my chairmanship. on my first old schip i said closing the digital divide would be my highest priority. ever since i've tried to just run my mouth but to be on the run. logged over 4000 miles on the road to visit the people and

places being bypassed by the digital revolution and to highlight their stories. the most effective thing the fcc can do to connect more americans to faster better broadband is to remove regulatory barriers to network investment. as someone memorably put it in the free state foundation stoy 16 gala, we need to fire up the weed wacker and remove those that are holding back investment, innovation and job creation. that's exactly what we have done over the past 14 months. we have scrapped heavy-handed utilities styled title ii relation and restore the light touch framework that led to $1.5 trillion in network investments and u.s. leadership in the global digital economy. we've modernized the rules for business data services known to some of you as special access to these unnecessary rate regulation in competitive markets and increase incentives to install infrastructure. we've launched the initiative to get rid of roadblocks to the deployment of wired and wireless

infrastructure and i'll talk more about this later. and we've removed obstacles for companies looking to use next-generation satellites to dramatically improve the speed and capacity of satellite broadband. i'm proud of what we've accomplished to extend digital opportunity to our fellow americans. i have no intention of slowing down. looking ahead i thought i would focus on the subject of today's conference, dancing the gigabits and 5g future. the beauty of our next generation of wireless networks is that gigabits needs and 5g can be one and the same. 5g promises wireless fiber fast connectivity i will unleash the internet of things and unlock innovations yet to be imagines. 5g will be infrastructure heavy come some analysts project it will require at least a 100 fold increase in the number of small sails deployed in the united states. but there's a snag. many of the sec's rules were designed for 200-foot cell

towers. we are going to to make it easier to deploy these new networks. we took an important step on that front just last week. we adopted an order making clear that the fcc does not need a federal historic preservation and of my mental review for every single small cell. a review by -- is that the new rules will create savings of $1.56 billion, generate up to 17,000 new jobs and will speed the deployment of next-generation networks. this will not be the last order to come out of the wireless infrastructure preceding that we launched last year. special thanks to commissioner carr who is leading the push to get our infrastructure rules 5g ready. spectrum will also be critical to our 5g future and we are busy on this front, too. a big-ticket item for 2018 will be an auction of the 20 gigahertz band followed thereafter by an auction of the

24 ghz band. to set the foundation for these auctions i circulated to my fellow commissioners just yesterday a public notice seeking input on auction procedures. we will vote on that public notice at our april meeting. that's not all we're doing. we're making progress on airwaves above 24 gigahertz in the spectrum frontiers proceedings. last month we raised our eyes to the spectrum horizons looking to open up spectrum above 95 gigahertz or commercial use. ms. van spectrum will be critical for 5g and this is why we have parted with ntia administrator redl to review the 3.4 ghz band and band and also why i asked commissioner o'rielly to take the lead on the 3.5 gigahertz and it would take a close look at making available the 3.7-4.2 gigahertz band for terrestrial use and help to propose next steps on that in the coming months. we are taking another at unlicensed spectrum

opportunities below eight gigahertz with a particular focus on studying new opportunities for shared use in the six gigahertz band and elsewhere. if that's not enough shoptalk for you, the good news is commissioners car riley will be joining you this afternoon. let me just close by thinking free state foundation once more for elevating the policy discussion on key medications issues. the goal is clear. connecting everyone and bring the benefits of the internet age to all americans. meeting that goal will not be easy but events like this helps steer us in the right direction. so thank you to free state and thank you to everyone taking part in this important discussion about the future of our digital economy. have a great conference. [applause] >> okay. well, thanks to chairman pai for

those remarks. i'm grateful to him. you know, originally he was scheduled to be here but then conflict arose. by the way, i think most of you know, but for those of you who may not, i think he was the person that talked about taking a weed wacker to the regulations over at the fcc. and you know, i don't know whether you what you refer to it as a weed wacker are what, but to my mind chairman pai has done a a good job and got off to a fast start in terms of looking at regulations that may no longer serve the public interest in light of the changing circumstances. thank you, chairman pai. so now it's my pleasure, i know

administrator redl is here in the room, and i'm going to ask him to come up. there you are here just have a seat. it's really a great pleasure for me to introduce david redl. i'm going to say this now. you know, we have the complete bios of all of our speakers in this nice brochure, and that includes david's bios, so with his permission and everyone else's today, i'm not going to go through the whole bio just give you the very basics. for david, of course, the most important thing is he's the assistant secretary for communications and information at the department of commerce, a

position he assumed in november of last year. and in that capacity he also has the dual role of administrator for the national telecommunications and information administration, which is the executive branches principal advisor on telecom policies. and prior to assuming this job, david as many of you know, if not most, was the chief counsel at the house committee on energy and commerce. what i'll say about that, just put it in one sentence, is that i think all of us have an understanding of how having served in that role for many years, how many years, was it, david? okay, i was right. almost seven years.

there was probably not another job in washington that could have prepared him any better for the job that he has now. so with that come join me in welcoming david redl, please. [applause] >> well, thanks randy. i'm proud to be a speaking today and i would also like to thank you for single handily keeping the hashtag like because been sometime since we have used it on capital employed to see still kicking. i've always appreciated free states many years of work on key medication issues and certainly the value that you have in bringing a robust and intelligent debate to some of these issues, so thank you for having. today's theme is timely and fits take the will with articles that ntia which to expand spectrum, support development of 5g and help connect all americans to the internet.

this administration has made clear that connecting all americans especially those in rural areas is a major priority. we know that too many americans still lack access to reliable, affordable broadband internet service. at ntia were working on this problem by helping communities gain access to technology that can improve health and education, promote economic development and unleash american innovation. our broadband usa program supports committee leaders seeking to expand broadband connectivity. we work together to identify resources and provide technical assistance and have helped for the 250 communities develop public-private partnerships to meet their connectivity needs and digital inclusion goals. our state broadband leaders network helps facilitate information sharing among representatives from more than 20 states. which is included a highly successful summit in tennessee where he worked together with tennessee economic development authority and brought more than 200 state and local officials to

share best ideas for improving states connectivity. we are also expanded connectivity by ensuring there is enough spectrum to meet our nation's 5g needs. one of our core missions for striking a balance between the demand for spectrum by various commercial users and the needs of federal agencies in their important missions. thanks to the hard work of art interdepartmental radio advisory committee at our policy and plans to group, the two principal advisory bodies we have on a given site, we were able to announce selection of megahertz advocate for relegation to services. we have a lot of work to do to determine if this is going to be viable for us to have good auction but we have to work now to figure out whether or not we can support our government income which was glued to defense department radars while to national security. this could be an important band for us because it merely immediy adjacent to the 3.5 gigahertz band the citizen broadband radio service spectrum and could help

fuel our nation's 5g leadership. dod plants is met a proposal under the spectrum pipeline act to create comprehensive study to determine the potential for reallocation for wireless services without harming operations. we hope the result will be a win-win that enables the continued growth of the u.s. industry while also maintaining defense departments mission critical systems. a pipeline act and spectrum relocation fund are two of the strongest tools we have two look for freeing of spectrum for commercial uses. we want to have every tool possible to ensure we're making the most of our nation's scarce spectrum resources. clearing out band is our priority, let's be clear. the law says that's our priority and will continue to look to find bands to clear. we know there are other bands we're clearing out government users is not an option. to that end ntia continue to work to develop and implement novel spectrum management approaches. for example, the president's

budget for fiscal fiscal year 9 includes a proposal to authorized ntia to administer leases of the federal spectrum. this could be a valuable tool in areas where clearing is not an option a potential excuses that could be made. this is a high level for both of us at this point and many details need to be sorted out but i but i believe it has great potential as an additional tool for the federal government to use in meeting other countries needs. we've been looking to find was incentivize agencies to you spectrum, excuse me, to spectrum couples identify bands. upgraded technology or capabilities can serve as an incentive of whether agencies could become beneficiaries on the services provided by commercial users in the band. we would also have to sort out how to find the resources to negotiate leases and administer the program. the idea to add tomatoes as we can enter the underutilized spectrum to work while maximizing the economic value of spectrum and protecting federal

encumbrance. we're happy to see congress is interested novel approaches as well. the act signed into law last week as part of the budget deal includes a provision on researching and sinister agencies to relinquish more spectrum and requires a study on bidirectional sharing. a side note, a personal friend of mine. i would close within for many years at energy and commerce and i'm really pleased to see the spectrum that adorns his name will have major impact on the next generation of connectivity. i also really appreciate the blog that free state publishes this week highlighting the competence of this important legislation that bears his name. as look further for tools were relying heavily on institute for delicate medication site is. the research lab in boulder, colorado. as mentioned before the candidate band that beauty will study is adjacent to the cbi spent at 3.5 gigahertz. ids is helping bring three dot five to life. the heart of this innovation spectrum band are two systems come spectrum access system and

the right mental since the capability that will allow commercial users to coexist with navy radar systems. i tsa's collaborate with all interested stakeholders to certify the system are ready because they are necessary to bring the band to market. the dod study, the three to five gigahertz band and recent announcement azure chairman pai allude to in his video have the potential to make as much as 75s mid-band spectrum available to meet our nation's 5g needs. it's a big deal. we are also looking at the boat less makeup of the order easing regulations that impeded deployment of wireless infrastructure. it's an important step forward in securing america's leadership in next-generation wireless connectivity and consistent with our commitment to remove obstacles to allow 5g to flourish. ntia is looking to improve federal coordination and reduce barriers to broadband deployment, another major

priority for this administration. the effort coordinated to the broadband interagency working group which we coach or alongside our at the department of agriculture world utility service. at present our efforts are focused on three work streams. aligned with the key recommendations of the presidents task force on agriculture and rural prosperity. expanding broadband was the number one recommendation. the first and focus for the big is working group is known is federal permitting. we're looking at these requirements that come in the broadband systems on federal lands in an effort to streamline permitting efforts and establish consistency across agencies. the second area federal funding of broadband. as many of you know federal government has projects to support broadband buildout, broadband support and we been looking to identify the efficacy of these programs and recommend enhancements to the coordination across the u.s. government. several agencies were also

tasked with responsibility in the fiscal agent spending bill and we look forward to working with them. that includes our u.s. which has a new broadband loan and grant program as well as the commerce department economic authority, administration which is been asked to prioritize answered ars in its broadband projects. the third and final area for the working group to look at is leveraging federal assets for broadband deployment. in january president trump issued a memo instructing the interior department to develop a plan to increase access to tar facilities and other assets. this could lower the cost of buildout and encourage american infrastructure deployment in rural america. the task force recommended assessing the current state of nationwide access including infrastructure gaps and opportunities for more efficient deployment. we know one of the best ways to solve the digital divide is to better understand it. ntia has been a leader in collecting and analyzing data on broadband adoption and using

that to develop policy. we have decades of experience in analyzing broadband in the united states and we have high quality data-driven policy research that is essential to create the holistic view which is the current state of broadband deployment. we need accurate reliable data analysis to properly inform private decisions can reduce barriers and better coordinate federal programs that fund broadband infrastructure. we need to be able to aggregate existing information with multiple data outlets across the u.s. using innovative ideas to harness deployment coverage that may not be available. last week congress appropriate funds to ntia to work with the fcc and the states to update the broadband maps with more diverse data sources. to produce a more accurate assessment and provide a tool for policymakers to better target the funds that are allocated to bring broadband to those parts of our country that still lagged behind. the broadband usa group and ntia

has spent the last years continue to cultivate our state broadband leaders network which includes officials within state and local and county government to spend their time thinking of how to improve broadband in their communities. the situation has yielded real results with dates have been witness to take on the challenge of maintaining these maps and getting good data. through ongoing meetings including a recent summit in tennessee, state and community leaders get a chance to learn what works and what's failed in their efforts to bring broadband to their citizens. whether at solving a local connectivity issue for are developing new approaches to spectrum development ntia helps to contribute to advances in our 5g future. ..

i want to thank randy for 12 hours great work at this wonderful event and thank you for having me here today. i look forward to questions. [applause] >> david, thank you again for those remarks, which we appreciate. and thanks for mentioning the blog at the foundation for rate loans act. it is very important as

administrators have to point it out. i want to say this. i think all of us are pleased that the bill had the name attached to it. i should point out of course that david of course played a big role in bringing that measure forward and developing it. so he of course deserves a lot of credit for that. david has agreed to take a few questions. the way we are going to do this is if you have a question, i want you to identify yourself, please and try and ask a question if possible. i will help you do that if you

have trouble with it. rather than a long statement. we've got a mic. i want you to wait until you're recognized and then we will have a few questions. so, are you raising your hand? >> stanton, do you have any thoughts were going to look at data funded through the bill last week? >> my team is in the process of digging through in figuring out what we can do to best and most most efficiently use the 7.5 million. sec and oppressive as reported and asked for $50 million to achieve that. congress provided 7.5. we are going through an figure not how we can use that in a way

that produces the best tool for policymakers to make this decision. the bill passed very recently. so don't have an answer yet, but we are working on it. >> okay, the gentleman -- >> i am working for the european union here in washington. you have very well spelled out your work. i wonder if you find time to look at what industry should be doing our expectations for the industry side are. >> with respect to the issues we talked about today, we are in close contact with our colleagues in the private sector in the government at all times. we've got three different advisory committees. one of the commercial side, two in the government site to make sure we are in constant dialogue with both industry and

government users as we develop good policy. on 5g, we're all going through the same thing. 5g is a term that is everything to everyone and we are trying to figure out how best to meet america's need to make sure as we go forward in this next generation of wireless infrastructure that we are maximizing the value to the american citizens, particularly rural america, ensuring the president made very clear that secure communications as part of the national security strategy, particularly with respect to 5g and continue to be a leader in wireless. we've been a leader in want to maintain that leadership as we go forth. we continue to talk with our colleagues in the private sector constantly. >> okay, we have time for maybe one more question if we have one. it looks like all the way over on the side.

>> thank you, mr. administrator. switching gears a little bit, but still in your wheelhouse, the chairman announced yesterday a proposal to deny funds to carriers for usf funds. i have not yet seen that proposed order, but it is an executive branch function and if that does pass, what would be the role of ntia coordinating national security insight if it does pass? >> the sec proposal in why can't be and we're looking forward to working with colleagues to see what they produce. ntia's role will be to work across the government within the department of commerce where we have significant expertise on these issues, but also to figure out a whole of government response in coordination with our colleagues.

>> okay, i think we will now think administrator redl. i want to present him with a small token of appreciation. i guess the emphasis is on small this time. david, in the past sometimes come you may have seen this, we present speakers we may be larger tokens. you know, i found out there is a concern, do they exceed some government limit in terms of the ethical requirements or whatnot and of course i want to be sensitive to that. i am going to present you with this beautiful ballpoint pen emblazoned with free state foundation on it. you know, i'm almost embarrassed to say it, but i guarantee we secure largely through the share

price of my wife, lori. its value is under a dollar, so i hope you can keep it and use it in most of all, thank you for being here. >> giving a bureaucrat a pen seems somehow appropriate, so i appreciate it. [applause] >> okay, for those of you standing, it is great to see such a large crowd. we do have seeds. there are seats up front, so i hope you'll find a seat. i am now going to call on my colleagues come a senior fellow seth cooper to come up along with his panel and we will move right into the next pin all now. and right after this panel, we are going to move right into the

second all-star panel no later than 10:45. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

>> good morning. are there to welcome everyone to the free state conference. our panel, the first all-star panel today's solutions for connect in america and closing digital divide. i would like to welcome the audience here, welcomed the audience on c-span this morning. forgo morning cartoons to tune in to the latest and future ratios of digital communications policy. so, we have for all-star panel is with us today. i will introduce them briefly. john jones is the senior vice president of public policy and government relations with century link. responsible for representing central bank's policy and advocacy position to federal, state and local policymakers included the fcc, congress can a

state regulatory bodies and other agencies an industry group. he has a 24 year tenure with a company that is now century link, reaching back. prior to that, he was a director and adjunct communications faculty member at the university of monroe. he's also a member of the board of directors for u.s. telecom. we are glad to have john here today. we also have with us the senior vice president and general counsel of ctia. he felt that since 2015 prior to which he was u.s. deputy chief technology officer for telecommunications in the white house office of science and technology from 2011 until 2014. he was chief of staff at ntia from april 2009, august 2011. he worked in industry law practice as well and was a senior legal adviser.

we are going to happen because he's a recent addition to our panel that will be reflected in the bio we have there, but we are glad to have tom power here. we received late sunday night word that michael powell would be unable to attend because of an unavoidable last-minute schedule conflict. we are delighted to have james tranter with us today, executive vice president at the internet and television association. he is the second most senior executive involved in all aspects of their work. prior to that, he was a longtime member of the u.s. senate committee on commerce science and transportation most recently serving as senior democratic counsel to the committee. he has worked in law practice as well and telecommunications laws and adjunct faculty member. welcome back, james. i'd also like to welcome back the cold turner lee, but the

center for technology innovation at brookings. dr. nicole turner lee as a contributor to brookings tank. she was previously vice president and policy officer at the multicultural media telecom and internet council. in that role, she let the design and implementation of the research policy and advocacy agendas. prior to that, she was vice president and first director of the technology institute at the joint center for political economic studies. and so, we're certainly delighted to have you back as well, nicole. just a little bit about the format for this all-star panel. each panelist is going to kick things off with an opening remark going about five minutes. we ask you to keep that to five-minute or the panel buzzer will go off. after that time will give the

panelists, if they wish come a moment or two to briefly respond to anything they hear. following that, we will have some question time here on the panel. i'll direct them questions to her all-star panelists. following that, we will open it up to the audience. as we go along, if you have any kind of question that comes to mind, please hang onto it and we will hopefully get to you for our folks in tv land. we don't have any operators standing by to take your questions, but for those who are following on twitter, we have a twitter handle that is #sfs -- her opening remarks, i will first start with james assey. >> accursed da.

[laughter] thank you comest death. thank you khmer randi appeared a pleasure to be back here with everyone. i extend michael's apologies. i know he would have loved to have been here today to talk to you. i think the topic we were going to start on was focusing america and closing the digital divide. let me briefly kind of start where i always liked his art when we discuss how we fill in the gaps in the holes that we have. that is to really take tremendous stock of what we've seen over the last decade, decade and a half, two decades. you know, with respect to the cable industry and certainly we are not alone, that through a lot of private capital invested and a lot of industry, we have built out networks that can provide access to 94% of america's household. that is not an insubstantial

accomplishment, particularly when you consider the demands consumers put on internet networks continues to grow by leaps and bounds era her year after year. that is also not to diminish the importance of closing that last gap, that 6% who can't yet get access to broadband or even closing the adoption gap of those people who could get it but haven't yet with the rest of society in using the internet as fully as they should. so when we look at what we need to do to kind of close at 6%, you know, you've already heard this morning from assistant secretary redl said new developments in congress, certainly a lot of focus on what we can do to close the gap. i think one of the themes are one of the overlays we've put on any type of strategy is to

really recognize technology neutrality and they need to design policies that reflect on and respect the fact we have a multiplicity of different broad band platforms available to us. who would've thought that cable technology has evolved to where it is today. the wire technology is about to where it is. satellite technology. >> commissioner michael riley and then we are going to get started. tran thanh -- [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] >> i'm just going to try to get

someone to bring us a glass of water. >> i would love some water. >> we are going to try to get that done. [inaudible conversations] >> okay, i hope you have enjoyed a lunch so far. if you are still eating, please continue on and i think we'll get started to make sure we have enough time. i want to first welcome back our c-span audience. we are delighted you are with us again this year. so thanks for that.

well, this i have to confess as much as i enjoyed all parts of our program each year, this is always one of my favorite parts when we have a conversation here i know commissioner o'reilly has done it before. i hope you warned commissioner car here how tough it is going to be. actually, sometimes we've done it in the past with their chairs even closer. i need to reach out and grab someone. i'm sure this arrangement will work fine. you know, i'm not going to do the introductions. i know almost everyone in the room here. i didn't even bring up my brochure, but i can tell you

with certainty and for in memory just these points. commissioner mike o'reilly, first joined the commission in 2013 and has been a member ever since. before joining the commission, i would just put it this way. he had a long, distinguished and increasingly important career on the hill. most of it but the senate before he joined the commission. commissioner brendan carr, the newest addition. commissioner rosen were still when she came back on. are you senior to her in some sense? >> that's a question only for

other people to answer. [laughter] >> i just thought it looked like on the website you are. but the most important thing. commissioner car, he has the benefit of having had a previous distinguished career right at the fcc where he served as well before becoming a commissioner. before that, principal advisor to now chairman pai. now before that, if not immediately before, commissioner car was at a law firm i think. when i was thinking about your

bio, commissioner car, you are now at the commission and you've obtained general counsel and now you are commissioner. you probably know our friend, you know, he was general counsel and then commissioner. do you ever have dreams about that? >> here to make the big bucks. [laughter] >> i didn't even know the bucks for that much bigger. anyway, that was a progression i just remembered wiley took. we are going to get started and we will start off with maybe some questions a little more personal before we dig into the nitty-gritty. i am going to ask commissioner o'reilly, as said, commissioner car obviously knew his way

around the fcc. he had experience at high levels before becoming a commissioner. you've heard had those years already under your belt when he became a commissioner. i want to ask you, did you offer him any tips? >> first coming thank you for having me. so good to be here. congratulations on 10 years. i've done a number of those myself. i really enjoyed them and tried to figure out the right tie to wear so i wouldn't repeat the many events i've done. it was pretty hard work. >> i wouldn't remember. don't worry. >> i think i offer some advice. i didn't tell them, but i offered some advice. i am of the mind, you know, but i think i've provided information to him to do the right thing and let the politics take care of themselves, to not worry about the particulars and just focus on what is the right

thing, what the right decision is and everything else will take care of itself. >> that terrible advice. [laughter] >> you mean everything has been taken care of itself. >> it depends on the time. eventually we'll all be dead. >> commissioner car, what is the most useful thing you learned as general counsel that helps you do your job as a commissioner? >> to start coming thank you for having me and congrats on 10 years. we just had the buffet lunch, so hopefully people are fully fed, full bellies, ready to take a nap. if you do take a nap, though go a lot faster and be a lot more fun. the role of counsel is a fantastic job. it is a problem-solving job. the policymakers at bedtime would indicate where they were going and your job was to find

the lawful pads are the different options they could take to get there. somebody said that skill set certainly translates over to job as commissioner. you have an instinctive where you want to go. the record, the law. but the juicy tells you to step back what different ways we can approach this. there's different ways of getting there. how do we build a coalition on the way to getting there. that skill set is helpful in this particular job. >> okay. commissioner o'reilly, you mentioned which he told, and the advice he gave to commissioner car already. you've been on the commission now a good long time, just to sort of do a variation on the question i asked him, what is the most useful thing that you have learned about being a commissioner that you didn't know when you assumed the position. >> interesting question. you know in fairness, it is how

much material goes out our door every day, how many things are worked upon by the great stuff of the commission and how much i fear that is only a portion of it. there are a lot of things being resolved, work upon by the good staff that i don't have to deal with and thank goodness. less opportunity to screw it up. >> commissioner car, i will ask you this question, which is really the same one that i ask every commissioner that has been here before you. so you know, i just use my cut-and-paste. here is the question. name one person who has had the most influence on the way you approach your job as commissioner and tell us why. >> i will probably have to dodge, but i can tell you this. if i did pick one person, it was certainly have to be my wife. we met in law school and she is

actually the more talented and accomplished lawyer in the car family, so i take a lot of lessons from her in her career. when i step back, i've been tremendously lucky to have a number of mentors over the course of my career. before i went to law school, i just happen to have my office sitting next to general counsel and outside counsel for media companies and he said you should think about getting into telecom. you should go to law school and it was sort of often running for mayor. internships are in moscow commissioner abernathy early on and then got to continue in school, met some interesting professors, brian tremont, similarly strong mentorship from then right out of law school. senior partner there, henry rivera, former sec commissioner, so this really benefited from some great mentors over the

course of my career. >> okay, you see i have no power at all, which is as it should be. you guys feel free to answer questions anyway you want to. by the way, i noticed that you spoke about your wife. i was looking at my wife over there and she appreciated that answer as well. i could tell. okay, now this is really for both of you. if you have the power, and i understand that you don't have the power. >> that is an understatement. >> if you had the power and you were creating the commission now, what would look materially different than today? in other words, how would the commission be structured differently than how would it operate differently?

you should go first. >> okay, sure. the congress gives me the decision so i do know there used to be seven of us in others only five. we operated victories, so the makeup of the commission that worked very well. we had a good time, but i'm happy to have two more. one thing if i were king for a day and want -- i have a great partner. the chairman has been a great friend of mine. even if we disagreed on policy, the structure not because of the statute, just because a experience or because of the time period, we have entrusted the chairman was so much decision-making is so much of staff authority that it is earlier. it is i like to describe it. if i were to restructure it, i would make it a little more

balance. whether i was chairman, which i've not come or anyone else, should be a little more balanced. the chairman is doing a great job in my opinion. there's so much under his portfolio and so i think it could be a little more spread out. >> commissioner carr, how would you answer that? >> you obviously for years, for decades have been moving for convergence. the agency has a bit of a silent approach in terms of structure. wireline bureau, public safety. we do a good job in working across bureaus, but there is a level of convergence that are somewhat silent approach doesn't effect. try to think about it more from a different approach in terms of consumer protection, universal service, competition policy, reorienting ourselves along those extremes would be more beneficial if we were to restructure the agency starting now. >> okay, by the way, at the end

of the session, we are going to hopefully have time for one or two questions, so you can think about that as we go along. commissioner o'reilly, i'm going to direct this question to you, the next two questions on process reform. you know, the free state foundation for a long time we have been very involved and try to think about process reform and advocating process reform has been tempting that i think is important. you have really taken a leading role at the commission and advocating for process reform and in my view, really a commendable role. thank you for that. i want to ask you two questions. the first is this. the most notable example of process reform, probably everyone here would agree i miss

has been the release of commission draft text of three weeks in advance of the order, and of the commission meeting. you know, i've been doing communication policy for almost 40 years. and you know, that sounded pretty radical to some. even me initially. but now that you've had a years worth of experience with that part is, describe what you see as the benefits. give us the real story on it. and also, any drawbacks that have become apparent. >> sure. the credit is due to chairman tie to chairman tie for instituting this and that they his chairmanship, painful for ways to make this idea function of the new commission. i think the benefits are well known and i've talked about them

a number of times, but i believe making a document available today is the day you'll see new items for our april meeting. the american public at-large gets to see the items and read exactly what we are going to decide upon in 21 days. at the same time, they're part dictionaries in town that are plugged into the commission's operation and so with the laminated structure by making the document that everyone knows what's in play. the benefit is we realize that maybe this is the drawback, too. we are not as valuable as once thought of. the expertise have gone down depending on how they can item. so when people can read the tags they know exactly what is happening one way or the other, they can say this is not problematic for me rather than have been meeting just to make

sure they understood. but here they can read the exact language and make a decision based on that. it reduces the number of meetings and may be clarified the overall picture for everybody, but also the bigger drawback with the need for me. but hopefully not too much. >> it is interesting that the number of expert a's have gone down because i think most of us would've assumed it probably would've been the other way. >> my good friend, the former chairman tom wheeler said it's going to lead to complete chaos. i said there's no way. you're misinterpreting this. there's absolutely no way they would consider doing something like this. in actuality, it turned out to be a great benefit. we can debate the downfall i see very little. >> commissioner car, do you want to add anything? >> it's a tremendously --

tremendous policy. the public had no way of knowing exactly what it was. you have a few well-connected or high-priced lobbyists would find out the information and not everyone would. however it has the same shot seeing exactly what will vote on. there have been some interesting consequences. under the old approach i was a staffer rendered the old regime and three weeks ahead of time you get a lot of ex parte get a lot of experts a request from get a lot of experts a request from a meeting request that comment with an exchange to pull information out of you and you also get feedback early on in the process. now, everyone has a document. the tendency has been to take the document and pull it aside into their own radio. to some extent that is cut down on the early exchange of information in the process. what we are seeing is the back loading towards the end of the experts say. , the lobbying, what comes in at the last minute when that had been spread out earlier in the process before.

i'm interested in trying to find ways to encourage people to come in earlier because we are trying to formulate our positions. we are trying to negotiate among ourselves among the commission. as part of that is separate from that, we need to continue to work on ways of getting our island positions known to her fellow commissioners early in the process. i commend the agencies in 2012 with a general rule of thumb that the week before the open meeting user visits your main acts or informally with your fellow commissioners did not lead to a week or so of interesting discussions. there's been some tendency over the years for some people to lay in wait last minute. that is not conducive to trying to find common ground or compromise. in fact come under chairman wheeler we had a process for working group in one of the ideas i pushed was that we try to get ourselves as

commissioners out there a number of hours or days before the meeting because that's how we talk to each other and find common ground. that's one thought i have on the process. >> you know, it is interesting in the meetings you have where you take the sunshine meeting. you have to do it open meeting. but it is ironic that most of the public really didn't have a good sense of what it was you were actually voting on at the time. i've become a real convert. >> welcome aboard. >> it seems like some of the worst predictions, trouble certainly have been. so kudos to you. just the second question on process reform because you've

been so active in this area in such a leader. so just tell us now maybe what the next item or two on your agenda would be to try and get accomplished in this area if you could. >> in fairness, i is more than a couple handbills. >> i'll give you one. so we are going to push forward in the chairman has been great and we are going to have further conversations on this. i give you one that is something that popped up in the last number of months of delegating authority. how much is delegated to the staff to do on issues and how much is done at the commissioner level india commissioners have a right to pull things up to vote on them and require a commission vote. there is a mechanism to build and, but the last one was how do you deal with the fact you want commissioners to vote on things that they think are important, but not be out of drag the process out and not be delayed. have you deal with that?

it's putting time-limited structure on that. that's something i've advocated for. we have a couple bullets recently that would've been addressed by my proposal that would've been solved before we got to that mass. hopefully it is something people can take a look at and we can adopt for purposes. the second one is no matter what the process is, we have to make it more official. when i came to capitol hill, things are little more freestanding, certainly the senate goes by with a less formal process and an agreement to do anything, but as the commission you'd be surprised at how the rules are more formal and they're not as much. a lot of our rules are done and the little bindery give you when you walk in the door to what the rules are. it is something that i think we should codify more input into the actual cfr, versus having

the loosey-goosey we've always done it this way approach. i would like to see us move away from that. the chairman has been somewhat receptive on that. we will do that going forward. >> good. did you want to add anything? okay, and male as of you know, most people in this room know really that despite their deep philosophical differences, supreme court justice korea and justice ginsburg were fast friends who very much enjoyed each other's company, especially at their opera night's together, but i think other times as well. so, as a longtime observer of the commission, speaking for myself, i have the impression really that relations between

you two and the chairman included i suppose in your democratic colleagues are, how should i say it, brother frosty now. the personal relationships may be frayed. just talk to us. i could be wrong about that. i think ideally the commission functions better when it's working as a collegial body that is i think the original concept and notion. so tell us about the relationships and whether my impression is accurate or not. >> well, i will start. i do want to insult you as you are the hosts, but i think your impression is wrong. i have great relationships with my democratic colleagues. we work together on numerous

projects. we may disagree one day in the next day we are working on a different project. i've done blogs, offense, we work on different projects that may colleagues. i was just working with mr. rosenworcel on 9-1-1 issues, working with commissioner clyburn on the issue of means testing, high costs, so we do work very closely and other days we disagree on something of a mix it up a little bit in a thoughtful way hopefully. so i think i have great relationships with my colleagues, great relationship with commissioner carr and the chairman has been a good friend. i believe the new commission is actually a breath of fresh air compared to the last one. my good friend, tom wheeler, everyone seems to walk on tip toes and i think people are a little more relaxed. i think relationships are just fine in my opinion. they can always be better, but we are working as well as we

can. >> what is your sense of it, commissioner carr? >> storyline has been overblown. i understand why, but at the end of the day, we are all getting along really well i would say. i believe in having open door and talking to each other. what you see out there in some ways is the way public policy works, when you feel strongly, when you feel passionately about an issue come you should speak out that way, whether he agreed with your disagree with you and your welcome obviously to express that view. the vast majority of what we do at the commission, 90% plus is unanimous, bipartisan. there's a couple issues, obviously net neutrality being one where people strongly disagree. we get together the next day and find common ground. within those controversial items, it is still important to sit down and talk to each other. commissioner clyburn and i talked about our positions. we didn't necessarily convince each other. we expressed our views based on

our best look at the dock and the public interest as strongly as we could. we get back together again and see where we can find common ground. it is a storyline overblown and relationships are going really well. >> commissioner o'reilly, earlier today, speaking of friends, we talked a little bit in the context of the new legislation of the act that was passed. i had the privilege of knowing rate a bit myself and had worked with him sound and held him in high regard. i think, you know, you may have known him even better and i just thought if you wanted to say a few words about ray based on your working within that it would be appropriate to do so. >> i appreciate the opportunity. i think we are all at a loss for

a rate passing to get things done because ray was an amazing individual trying to put people together and make projects to get to the solution on different projects. whether it was in the state azores time in the dirt for his last job in the energy commerce committee as chief of staff. he was a wonderful individual and very knowledgeable on the topic and we worked together on a couple projects as well and enjoyed getting to know him very well. as much as he was interested in communications policy and is an expert on universal topic specifically, it was all about his family. i saw him the last couple months and he came up to me and tell me what was happening healthwise, but then he would always have a conversation with i've got to get back to my family. that's what's important to me, to spend as much time as i

possibly can. >> thank you for that. we are going to now turn to a topic of -- discussion of some of the substantive topics. guess what is at the top of the list. net neutrality. now, by the way, looking around at this audience i can tell this conversation we have is so enraptured that i don't see many of you tweeting. i am glad you are that enraptured. feel free if you would like to tweet. this is going to be exciting, too, as we now move to this point. okay, here we go. the caption of the fcc action to

the 2015 title ii order is restoring internet freedom. to me, that is a powerful message that ought to convey some meaning to the american public about what is at stake in this long-running net neutrality battle. we talked earlier about how we are well over 10 years now talking about net neutrality. granted, net neutrality has a certain appeal to it and i understand not. the internet freedom to me sounds like something worth fighting for is well. my question is, can you explain in what sense the december 2007 order that she voted in favor of, in what sense did that quote from the restore internet freedom and why was it

important? >> well, more fundamentally, the internet has been the greatest free market success story that i think i've ever known and it has been precisely because in 1996 in my view congress made a very conscious decision, which is we should allow the internet to poor-ish unfettered by regulation of the sort that we did two years ago. i think that is what led to the trillions of dollars in investment. that is what allowed internet companies, companies across the whole ecosystem to go for a made garage to corporate behemoth today. it was the actions of heavy-handed regulation from washington that led to the success story. the decision was going back to same tried and true approach. we will continue to see the benefit and see more investment. we'll continue to see more of the plane that. i think it was absolutely the right decision to go back to restore the same framework we

had for the 20 years before 2015. moving on from that, i think there is a tremendous amount of common ground on this issue. they continue to be hot button, but in terms of the rule and how the internet should operate, i don't think there's a tremendous amount of debate about it. there's the question of legal authority in how we view it, but i see a lot of common ground in terms of how the internet functions. >> commissioner o'reilly. >> marketing is only so important to me and why do you call it net neutrality and for a while but the proponents call it open internet. i worked on the internet tax freedom act. you can call things what you want, but they really get on the substantive issues and what you're trying to do here. the effort that are the chairman that we voted for is removing barriers to the offering of services that too they were not

justified. either behaviors we are trying to guess that the marketplace will be, and not examples of what will happen in the market at the time. we are trying to guess where things should go and prohibit behaviors not knowing what would be the harm or benefits going forward. we are restoring places my colleague indicated to the hiding function internet had existed before and still have the opportunity if things go forward if there are problems that develop whereas they can be addressed by the congress the new legislation has been talked about for a long time or whatever the case may be. they're still protection that exist whether at the fcc or the ftc or department of justice depending on a particular subject matter. we definitely need to go to the three bright line rules and the conduct standard, which i couldn't disagree more policy wise. i'm happy the direction we've gone and i look forward to what

will come because of it. >> on the general conduct standard, you know, was criticized for being vague and, you know, overinclusive and difficult to know what it would prohibit. i think you were just referring to that. were there any examples, you know, it is one thing to talk about it in terms of what it might do. were there examples of any affects it actually had during the time it was signed? >> absolutely. you're right to say it has no structure. it was supposed to be this roving enforcement euro individual to determine what they liked at any given moment. we have experience with this. the commission decided that your rating would be done under the general conduct standard and you had the bureau spent nine months trying to figure out what they were supposed to do on the issue

is your rating. i had conversations, what are you planning to do, what does it mean for your business? you have a couple offering its related services. are you planning any new ones? we are holding right now, waiting until we understand exactly what the bureau -- how they treat our current offerings, competitor, what they will do along those lines. for a time. it was stuck in molasses. when are you going to make a decision, with the outcome, they would say were not ready to make a decision. it just so happens they're ready to make a decision basically the day after the election and the power shifting within the agency. a terrible mistake to go down to basically zero structure for oversight and no guidelines except for what the chairman thought at the current moment. that is a terrible way for the regulatory agency to operate. >> did you anticipate the extent

of a pushback that the commission would receive, including the reaction in the states? was that foreseeable or pretty much what you expected or not. >> yeah, all of these issues for a long time. people care passionately about the internet. this is the intersection of government and internet. if you're not passionate, fired up about it one way or the other on the issue, it's entirely appropriate. some of the rhetoric cross the line, but in the name, this is an issue people really feel strongly about. i don't think anybody went into this discussion think it would fly under the radar or not be noticed or see these reactions. we make the best judgment calls it can based on our view of the law, view of the facts of record. i don't think anybody went into this again it wouldn't be exactly what it is. >> i would agree with that. i think it far exceeded the line

because when you get to things like death threat, that is beyond pale and completely inappropriate. public policy matter, things that should be more tempered. many people had to change behavior because of that. we should figure out how better to disagree on policy without having to raise to that level. i would've liked more people to have said such a thing as we've gone through the process. it's a little bit disturbing on that part of the equation. the overall tension for 10, 15 years that the people who had opinions, the last go around had another of comments. so nothing too surprising on that front. >> as conservatives, i assume that as a general proposition , i guess i'm assuming you're conservative for purposes of this question. you don't favor government

regulation in general displacing state authority. but there are exceptions to every general proposition . explain why you think it makes sense as a matter of policy. i'm not asking right now the legal underpinning, but as a matter of policy for the fcc to preempt state authority to impose economic regulation on the isd. go ahead. >> well look, i do -- i am a conservative than i do believe in the states rights on many issues. i believe that the internet is something that crossed the state's boundaries, every international boundary. that is why we have interstate commerce clause of the u.s. constitution built for that purpose. our founders were genius to include such if they had to with those issues. at no point does internet traffic at a particular state boundary. to say that the state will have

this particular decision on something as incredibly problematic from a viewpoint. that is why we did the approach we did and we dealt with those issues. your previous question as well, and my surprise the states are asked upset? i'm not surprised. i think they are wrong to the matter of federal law and open and public policy. >> commissioner carr, i will ask you this question because i know commissioner o'reilly is a brilliant lawyer as well. >> is actually not a lawyer. >> i take that back. >> brilliant nonetheless. >> it's like people sometimes tell me, you know, you're an economist because we ride all about these economic issues. commissioner carr, you know,

there are those who claim, i hear this frequently now, that the fcc preemption authority will fail in a sense because the commission in its order disclaimed any authority to regulate internet service providers. in other words, they say because the commission stated that it lacked authority to regulate that you don't have authority to preempt. you know, that has a certain appeal to it. superficially. but explain, you know, what is the answer to the argument that i hear all the time? >> hopefully we are implementing the communications act. once you make a decision under federal law that this service, information service is a title i interstate information service. whether that regulatory regime

is considered a touch one or a heavy-handed one, there are legal consequences that come from the federal determination. one of them that naturally flows from that is the state law that disrupts the federal determination. in this respect, it doesn't matter whether that information should be lightly regulated across the board or the point that it's heavily regulated across the board. the 2015 decision had stay preemption there, that they determined expressly that the state stepped in and disrupt a heavy-handed approach that they took in 2015, they said those steps would also be preemptive. so the level, the relative level of the regulation doesn't really matter for purposes of this discussion, which is the federal determination that cannot be disrupted by a patchwork of 50 different state laws. >> i think it's also important

to people who make this case to you, say that is not inaccurate statement. we didn't say no regulation. we said it would be regulated this way in a federal structure. we also added preemption to that. .. now the fcc's authority has been restored now with the changing classification. just so we understand, you say you maintain, i guess my question is, to both of you, it ought to be clear that it

continues to puzzle people. that you classify these services, do you retain authority to issue other types of regulations than the ones you have in place under some theory or was it your position in the order that we don't have any authority even though these are title i services. we don't have any ancillary authority. that's what we are trying to get out. >> one of the myths that's out there is this talking point that what our decision did was eliminated all relation of isp were eliminated every protection a consumer has such that isp now dictates the

online expense. for one, we have a transparency role that can be enforced but more fundamentally, we have, by reversing title ii, restore the authority of the federal trade commission which was the nation's premier consumer protection agency. there's a number of actions that the federal trade commission is empowered to take, a number of enforcement actions to the extent that providers and turn into agreement, to engage in the type of conduct that consumers talked about when it comes to net neutrality. the continues to be positive law and legal protection for consumers above and beyond the first principle of market forces in competition. i know there's a lot of people that will protect market forces in competition as a solution, but we went beyond

that both with our transparency role that can be enforced and the general section one, section two, section five authority of the federal trade commission so consumers continue to be protected under this approach. >> speaking of the ftc, one observation i could make in regard to your action is it's very rare that the federal agency languishes authority to another agency. it doesn't happen that much. >> if you look upon it, the fact that the previous commission stole the ability from the fcc. we are just restoring it to the place that was before. >> it could've been called the restoring fcc authority. >> now that we have the authority, privacy was a big issue and it was said. obviously your view is

differen different, in light of what you did and what we are learning now, what are your thoughts about privacy protection and where it stands right now. >> consumers care passionately about online privacy. this is an important issue. by classifying this is title ii.

it was a different regime that would apply to the network and isp. that was unwound by part of this new administration. we didn't know far isp has this data and my provider has this data and this applies to win this guy had it, i don't take it makes sense for consumer perspective. what they want to know is that their data is being protected, is being consistent with the expectation. bottom line, by reversing title ii, we restore the authority with respect to privacy and isp so now the federal trade commission can take a look at holistically, this entire online space and

either enforce its existing approach or modify its approach as need be. at the end of the day, the idea that were back to one regulatory body that can look at online privacy for every online actor. >> okay, i think we will move on to other topics. we will actually move on because you been doing some very other important things. commissioner car, i know you are a leader in that effort.

we want to advance the gigabit and 5g. >> i think it's something we will look back on and it will be important for next-generation broadband. we are in the midst of this transition of wireless service of 4g and 5g. it will be faster from a network deployment perspective. it will enable a lot of next-generation innovation. the stuff you are just hearing about from cars to virtual reality, the internet of things, all of that needs an upgraded wireless network for it to truly become reality if

we have these towers. there's a problem that there is these regulatory structures that assume that every deployment is a 100 or 200-foot tower. there's revelatory read tape. for those large towers we took

steps to reduce the regulatory redtape and streamline the process. we need to push forward and lead this global race to 5g. earlier today we talked about the fact that chairman pies. just talk to us.

whether that detracts from or may be inconsistent with this goal of closing the digital divide or whether, on the other hand, maybe it's complementary. how do you think about those two things. >> to be seen, exactly how it will be deployed, we have different people who have up different models in their head on how we think it might go. we talk about urban centers and rural areas. 5g is a perfect fit for some places and fill in.

any quit to bring broadband those who don't have it today. if you had to sit in rooms as i haven't talked to individuals who had nothing but dial-up and try to figure out how to function in today's society, whether it be their job or getting information on the government, i think that it's really go gut wrenching and it mostly affects you to redouble your efforts and figure out how we can make, entice providers to make sure they, that we have so many people in different places. we spent a great deal of time. it gets to the point that the commissioner is raising. my obligation is to get service to consumers. that means that there dragging their feet in terms of the

process for improving the service or trying to extract as much money as they possibly can from a provider and making it more difficult to provide service to that community, i am willing to and will push the commission to preempt that locality, that state, that tribal nation to make sure we get service to those who are underserved today and make sure i continue to work on that. >> on connecting everyone, the top line of art conversation today is connecting all of america so you're right, the different labels we can apply, but i think everyone has the same goal about trying to reach all americans. in just a moment we will see if we have a time for a couple questions. that's all we will do. if you have one, you can think about that. i will ask my last question in keeping with the notion of connecting all of america, we talk about the rural areas and

so forth, but you also have as part of universal service, the lifeline program that serves low income portions. i don't think there's anybody in the room who has been a longer standing advocate of free market principles and policies in general, than me and i tried to be consistent with that in terms of promoting facilities based investment. there has been something that of course is important. on the other hand i have question about lifeline proposals. i have raised in terms of cutting out and imposing a cap

so i just want to enclose in, again, because we are trying to figure out, in the context of all of these things how we can act. can you say anything about your sense now about the rulemaking and proposals that were made were there any second thoughts on the aspects of that on your part. >> look, there's no question that the lifeline program. it is part of our broader effort to try to close the digital divide. so many comments have come in. i'm interested in the ideas that we've seen in steps that

we can take on a budget to try to address that issue as well. there's waste, fraud and abuse. i know there's been delays, but what is the latest update. there is no question the program serves important purposes. i think the lifeline program can provide enormous benefits to consumers in need so i been supportive of the program overall. there's many people would like to get rid of the program. i'm not one of them. how do we address problems within the program? there is waste, fraud and abuse.

i tend to think that there's probably other things that need to be done. we certainly have to get a handle in terms of the size of the program because of the budget. if we can have budgets on all three other universal service programs, i think we can have a budget on this program. i'm to make that as part of my structure owing forward on the issue. it is not an entitlement program. they have no right to the money. there is no legal obligation to give the money out. i think the program will continue. there is no legal claim that people have to that dollar and we have to figure out how do we address the fact that all of the dollars being taken from consumers, there were about $11 billion that could be allocated this year.

i don't worry about rich people who can afford the extra couple dollars here and there but i worry about people at the borderline who might be right above, who then have to pay more for services that are not getting. delays they were not when you get this added tear of broadband service, when it get extra money that were making from consumers. i think we can be with all those in methodical ways and work with colleagues on the other side. it's been a tortured process, we thought we were in a particular place a couple years ago, hopefully we can get back there. we'll see where the comments go on the record and see how it plays out in the months ahead. >> okay. we will stay tuned on that because it is important. we will take maybe two

question questions, not statements and i will turn first to howard a mental turn to scott. >> i'm sorry. i just had a statement. [laughter] >> you had talked a little bit about how things, how that neutrality is a place resolve the most, but do you feel like , i guess one of the things i'm starting to think is that on some issues there's just a certain amount. i think we are sort of stuck where we are right now. >> i don't think this commission is any different.

i think the chairman is trying to establish a thoughtful process and i just had a moment recently where edits were asked, really close to the deadline the night before the meeting, it was 530 and i was heading out the door to do something else. i had already done all the work for the day and done my statements the next morning and then potential changes came in. i think what to work through some of those things as part of the list of reforms that can make the process fair for everyone. >> 5g, it seems like the key to 5g, the one thing you would want to prioritize his life or

death stuff. you prioritize 911. latency will be one of the key components of 5g. i can envision harmful ways just as i can envision proconsumer things we wouldn't want to see band. >> i couldn't agree more.

>> i disagreed with that point. i testified to that fact that i don't think that should be part of any legislation going forward. we'll just have to see what congress does with that. >> i'm going to let you after really quick question with a quick answer. [inaudible] [laughter] >> absolutely. i thought come in and we reviewing it.

but i want to remind you we have one more program. they are all prominent and brilliant but these are three of the best. they will say things that even commissioners won't say. today's appreciation of the

conference is even more of a token and even smaller than some of the past ones. things like that are all within the guidelines. no one will question that this comfortably fits within the guidelines of the general counsel. i want you to join with me now and think these two commissioners for enlightening and entertaining discussion. [applause] we are going to transition now to our final program.

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations]

, one. >> if you could take your seats we are going to get started with the last program today. this program is going to be moderated by a senior fellow ted and it's titled final thoughts in looking ahead, perspectives from three fs avenue academic all-stars.

when i was first thinking about this program and trying to figure out titles and putting them on paper, i had something like him up for this program, if i were fcc chairman instead of a professor, i would do such and such or these are my final thoughts and ted, to his credit reminded me that these professors really have every bit as much prestige, especially these three professors as any fcc commissioner or chairman and that i should be careful not to minimize their accomplishments and so, i immediately agreed and changed the program to final thoughts,

and looking ahead, perspectives from three academic all-stars, and i think we are in for a treat to hear from them. i will turn it over to ted. >> thank you randy. this is certainly a distinguished panel and the title is final thoughts and looking ahead. it's fairly open-ended topic, our speakers are welcome to comment on what they heard earlier in the day and give their own comments on what they are thinking from all of this and what their final thoughts are and what wisdom they can give us. we can find their detailed bios in the program so i will keep it short, doctor michelle connolly is an economist, her degrees are from yale, several of them and she also served, not once but twice as chief

economist at the federal communications commission. she is currently professor of practice of economics at duke university and even though i'm from the university of michigan, i was rooting for duke on sunday, both for the chance at a rematch and also because i didn't want to tread lightly around the randy this week. also, we have daniel lyons who has his degrees from harvard including his jd, he is an associate professor at boston college law school and has extensive legal experience at a law firm in l.a. professor christopher is also an attorney and has a degree from harvard as well as an mba from ucla. his undergrad is from harvard and his mba is from ucla and his jd from northwestern university. we are covering several of the major athletic conferences

with his education. randy mentioned they are all distinguished members of the free state board of academic advisors and we are very appreciative of all the many contributions they make. if i could ask you to proceed in the order that we have here, alphabetical and if you could hold it to about five minutes and then i will have some questions and open it up to the audience. >> thank you. >> my background is originally in macroeconomics, growth and development and i was thinking about everything we've been discussing today and i thought it would be good to pull all the way back and look at the forest in the sunset. when we are looking at development and growth in an economy, what i try to teach my students is the role of

institutions is primary in the creation of an environment in which the private sector can innovate and grow. without these institutions, the private sector can try and fail or will simply not try and that's something that we have been hitting on all day in terms of telecommunications policy and the fcc in general. so, with that in mind, i went to just think about regulatory stability and the three aspects, one is in terms of legislation, some of the current issues going on and the new office of economics and analytics. in terms of legislation, we have been talking about the need to address the issue of net neutrality or however you want to discuss it and i do agree with many of the participants today.

it was imposed for the open internet order and that is definitely true. beyond the use of title ii and specifically because of the issue of pay prioritization. i don't want that to be swept under the rug because people are so happy to be getting rid of type two regulation that they also forget that pay privatization is a very important thing about keeping this market free. as an economist, this is about a market and that should not be forgotten. the second thing that is very

clear, we always talk about spectrum and the fact that it's a finite resource so it would be useful to think forward about how do we ease the repurposed thing of spectrum moving forward. i'm sure that in ten years we will be have this same conversation of needing more spectrum, but it might be something worth looking at in the long-term, how can our institutions think not only about purpose, where we allocate spectrum currently but how do we make it so that it can be repurposed without five-year delays were huge kidnapping ransom fees in the future so that we can move more effectively. the last thing i wanted to focus on is the creation of the office of analysis which i am thrilled, absolutely

thrilled that the current commission is creating, i can also see why many people are skeptical about it, and so when i been thinking about this, i thought there were certain keys to doing this and doing this properly and that is how we guarantee or at least maximize the chances that this office will be impartial, will be respected and valued by both parties because if it isn't, if it's seen as only justifying decisions that were made ahead of time then no one will care what it says or does. if it's not respected by those political parties, it's again going to be ignored. we want to make sure that the fec has very good intention. it needs to be supported and we want to make sure that even

if something good is created, that in the next administration, people can't just say we don't like the answers are giving us and were going to ignore you and let you wither on the vine. as part of that, the key roles that i would see this office needing to fulfill is to improve data collection in terms of the types of data they are collecting and improve how well that data is available to the public, much of the sec data is public but as someone who has been trying to use that data, it can take years to piece together all the pieces into even find out what the true rules were for specific things. by having open data, then whatever analysis is done is more likely to be accepted or considered because outsiders can't, as much as possible, replicate what they want to do and they know they're not being lied too.

i do think this notion of the open data, to the extent possible is key to giving credibility to this new office. part of that credibility goes without saying that economists aren't god. everyone keeps talking about cost-benefit analysis and i think that's absolutely right. we want to make sure there is a high hurdle for new regulation coming out to prove first that you're doing no harm in that you are actually hopefully doing something positive so i do believe in this high hurdle, but if there aren't real data out there or if your economists are very well trained in theory or having the empirical work, it's not possible to do a perfect cost-benefit analysis on every single topic predicates worth getting as far as we can, saying honestly what we can determine, what we do know, and also being honest about what things we can't make claims about simply because there may not be enough information.

in such situation, i think the default should be that we have to prove a benefit before you should be able to change things. >> i don't need to issue that disclaimer because no one is under any preconceived notion about lawyers. my comments are more mundane. i think net neutrality is sucking the energy out of the telecom space. we just had a whole panel on how we don't really want to talk about net neutrality anymore. i think we've had this conversation on two continents over the past few years. the focus is really unfortunate because the effort that both sides are putting into this issue is all out of proportion. ultimately the net neutrality boils down to two simple rather mundane questions. one is antitrust law sufficient to deter broadband

providers from conduct and to our additional rules likely to cause more harm than good to the consumers of the database. everything else is rhetoric. rhetoric is sometimes useful, it means that people other than academics are reading my work right now and help me get tenure. that's helpful, but our collective energies are probably better spent on other issues in the space. without having been said, i can't resist one comment that we seem to be moving toward consensus on a no blocking, no throttling rule. the public choice academic inside of me whispers ever so softly that just because existing players support a proposal that doesn't necessarily mean it's the right answer. the fact that existing players are on board with a proposal might mean that the proposal can insulate from disruptive newcomers like limiting the potential claims of competition going forward. so it's i was on a panel that was focused on the origins of common public utility model

and one of the commentators said the whole point of common carriage was to make sure that as these new services are rolled out that they're being made available to everyone and no one is being left behind. that's for the fcc should spend big chunks going forward. there is a lot of interest in trying to find ways to bring broadband to the underserved. i'm partial to market oriented solutions and there's a lot of different potential avenues out there. i just want to hit on two very quickly. one is lifeline reforms. i think the market oriented solution to lifeline would be finding ways to increase the purchasing power of low-income consumers to allow them to participate more, as close as possible to fully fledged consumers in the marketplace. i think this requires flexibility and in that sense i think the existing lifeline reform proposal is a bit of a mixed bag. i strongly approve of lifting

restrictions on the services that you can get with lifeline subsidies, lifting the equipment requirement, but as randy has suggested, i'm not a big fan of the proposed ban on resellers and of the odd proposal that no one is really talking about suggesting that maybe lifeline providers need to prove they're not turning a profit, both of these seem, from a market perspective to be somewhat problematic in reducing rather than increasing the choices we are making available to the lifetime population. on the issue of broadband buildout, it think it's important to identify pockets of unserved areas and figure out the most cost efficient way with the money we have available. in that case it's a fantastic idea. from a federalism perspective, i've been really intrigued by the waiver that the fcc extended recently to new york to go into distribute money itself rather than pursuant to the fcc.

and this makes a lot of sense to me. in a lot of situations i think there are state regulators who have a better local knowledge about why there are existing buildout gaps in particular regions within the state. certainly more than the fcc. i think there in better positions to figure how to allocate dollars more efficiently. i think the experiment that comes out by accident winds up being a good model going forward to turn it into a block grant where they are and administering money with fcc oversight to make sure it's being spent efficiently. thank you to randy for inviting me. he has sometimes commented, i think he may have been the first person who invited me too a d.c. event many years ago so i owes him thanks to him. i also get to give my standard clip which my last name begins

with y which means i go last and everyone considers it fair and useful and it's something that we should be aware of whether it's best efforts or whatnot. what's interesting to me, i'll take the time to talk about what we didn't talk about for the funny thing is i think there's a lot of things that didn't come up that may reflect the fact that we been fighting these net neutrality issues so long that we tend to focus on them in ways that don't actually reflect what's going on in the world that i was talking with tom earlier, we both testified at the hearing in cambridge, that was in february 2008, over 10 years ago so it's been a while that we been at this. i've been dealing with net neutrality for as long as i

can remember. after tim was credited with quoting the term which is a bit of an overstatement, they asked me too write a reply to him so that was sort of in many ways one of the first, if not the first academic engagement so i'll take responsibility for getting the argument started. i will not take responsibility for having it go on as long as it has. i worry that our discussions don't reflect the concerns. cambridge analytics only came up once in passing.

there's nothing magic about a network or service provider and that if you. [inaudible] it's just a matter of time before it will be applied in different ways. we see this in the proposed fine against google for search practices and the ongoing advertising and android investigation. that's just the tip of the iceberg. i had the privilege of being a nongovernmental advisor nominated by the federal trade commission last week to the international competition network meeting in new delhi. for those of you who don't know, that is the annual gathering of antitrust officials were they all get together and talk about practices. it was a given in every conversation that they are going after the big providers. what struck me. in some ways there are also a tendency and that and opportunities when you see someone you think is rival.

there's a tendency to watch them as you fought battles and you see them push back from the table and let them twist in the wind, i think there's an opportunity here. there's a consensus and a chance to work out clinical deals. someone out the sun gets to something because of a supreme court decision in something changes i hope we can at least explore the opportunities. how can this legislative process work and less every legislative body support that. maybe there's some source of engagement there's a lot of different things on the table i think a lot of those can be

thought of opportunities as well as cost. we talk a lot of time about how to close the digital divide. for those of you don't know i'm waiting one world connect and how to connect people to different areas. were not just talking about indian reservations but were studying western massachusetts, counties in arkansas, there's a lot of places who have real challenges but two things that struck me, the deployment are working in a lot of places that have some promise and are very unorthodox. they look very different than the ones before. he mentioned something that we just don't talk about enough which is the demand side. there's a wonderful study done by two staffers and by two people who connecting kentucky that whole lot one third of people who haven't bought

broadband and asked them, what would it take for two thirds of people wouldn't even take it if it were free. that tells you, if you build it, they won't come. it's not about availability. you can make ubiquitous network. there's another set of policy that were not discussing at all and that the huge part of the problem but i think we're talking about in a very incomplete way. we need to think about this much more flexibly and broadly and tend to things beyond what falls in the purview and thick about other aspects of the problem. the last that is a cautionary note. i love the framing that randy has given us but i do think there's risks and all these words. the word gigabit worries me. there's this whole series of articles coming out and who needs a gig. the answer is every reasonable study says nobody. i know there's marketers who want to sell quitman's and all these different things but in

a world where netflix requires eight megs to stream and conference calling takes 12 meg you can maybe get to 50. heroically if you have the most aggressive consumers maybe a hundred. gig is just ridiculous but no one needs that. we got in the trap of marketing the gig of everyone saying we can do this and we can do that. it's having an effect on the rural communities. when you talk about fixed, you said you can't get a gig. and you have to ask plane but you don't need a gig. the hype has created a set of expectation for they have written checks we can't cash and it's limiting the policy space and it's easy to get caught up in ways that aren't comfortable. i have the same concern about 5g. people i know who are very candid will tell you the business models are tough and that's why we need the business flexibility to try to do things in very different way and try to find models.

a lot of it will be machine to machine. because it's machine to machine, a lot of it will be business-to-business. this will be a very different world that were talking about. the reality is, commissioner riley said it well, we don't know what the deployment model for 5g is. i will tell you in a small world, it is inherently unlikely or under a lot of pressure to be a role solution because there is just not enough density to support it. people who heralded as a rule solution, i've seen studies including that by milo patton who try to model, they're trying to play wireless to replace what they're doing and they said that wouldn't work. that's one study, it's a person is highly motivated to try to find solutions and he said is not gonna work. i actually think 5g is probably not going to be replacing 4g in the sense that we will have macrocell versus microcell but it may not even

be consumer oriented, maybe business and service oriented, it may be completely different, but when i went to mobile world congress earlier this month or late last month when everyone was talking about 5g as the next big thing , you thought it was gonna be like lte. i think creating that set of expectations carries a lot of risk because if people think it's gonna be the next big thing and it will mean something very different, we may have oversold what we are doing and have to backtrack. >> thank you very much. i will direct a few questions each of you, but if anyone would like to chime in "after words", please do so. i'll start with professor lyons, we've heard a couple of other panels about the whole issue of state preemption, excuse me federal preemption of state laws. there are some that's been in the arena and testified on this. what you say about the issue. >> on the one hand, i've

talked to legislators in public and private about what's going on in the space bar there's a sense in which the ground flow of support is demanding some type of a response. there's a sense in which a lot of state legislators feel like there not in a position where they can do something. the law puts them in a place for they can't do much if anything at all. this bill came out where they will adopt no throttling and be on zero rating. these things are dead on arrival and i don't even think it's a close question. the order is pretty clear in that it's expressing a language of preemption and the case was pretty clear that as long as there on firm ground, and they are, that the supremacy clause carries the day. is there any daylight at all for agencies to act, i think

the difficult question was one that seth brought up which is if you're looking just at estate executive order regarding the states own purchasing of service for itself, words explicitly inside the market participant carved out in the commerce clause and is not in any way attempting to influence third-party contracts, it's only dealing with service to the state, maybe that survives the dormant clause but i don't think we've seen that except maybe in the new york executive order depending on how you parse the language. beyond that think all those are if you're doing business with the state you have to offer services to consumers in the state and i think all those are clearly preemptive. >> professor connelly, you spenspoke last year at this conference, one of your main take away points was that chairman pi is working to clearly define what the proper regulatory role of the fec is a lot has happened in the past year. how is he doing? >> i've been very happy.

i think it's impressive, so this goes not just to chairman pi but it's impressive to have not just commissioners who are coming into situations where they are given a lot of flexibility and leeway and they are saying no, it would be better if we had last and commissioner riley was talking about it significantly earlier in terms of making sure it was not in a position where it's making regulatory grabs from other agencies or segments of society. generally i think it's also important that we think about the institution within it because truly historically we have observed that one person could run the show and make unilateral decisions and push things through.

that's not the way an agency should be. it should be an agency with technical expertise and with reason thought. i plot anyone who has power but is trying to improve the institutions they are in so that the institution is good and the institution survives and leads to positive things as opposed to just getting an institution to do what they want at that moment. >> professor, you wrote a paper last year on the financial viability of invisible broadband systems or lack of financial viability of the broadband systems and that had a great impact on that discussion. in reaching with the digital divide, is there a role for those programs cannot and also, how is the liability of broadband systems affected.

we talk about chattanooga, punchline, we borrowed $160 million and they make $400,000 a year. that's under the straight numbers. many of them already had service so this wasn't about the digital divide. there is one city who built new service. i can understand why they did this but i don't think the numbers bear out very well. they said about 60%, there's

three places you could be. you be making up money to cover your capital cost to me too be running in the black but not making enough for your capital costa rica be running in the red. depending on how you measure, 60% were running in the red. that's borrowed money and then going further further into debt every year they operate. these organizations are in deep deep trouble. there's another group of about 20 or 30% which are making money but they're not on track to pay back and there's a handful, like 10% or 20% depending on how you measure it that actually have a shot of breaking even. the take away from this is that it's possible that it could be done. on the specific question you're asking, i looked at the role number for fiber and this should come to surprised that this is a lousy role technology. the it's not, the density isn't there.

they were feeling irresistible pressure from their citizens and their cio who wanted to have a dream of running their own telco and they needed something to fight back with and to their credit, there are some cities that are fighting it and there's other did something smart, madison wisconsin to the pilot instead of going with both, the pilot is failing and i got a call from a reporter that asked why and i'll tell you right now, the problem is not generally on the cost side. the costs are great, but they manage that. it's on the revenue side because if anyone has been in this business knows, especially if you're in the overbuilt side, you have to come up with a new advertising campaign all the time to chisel someone off who already has service. guess what. elected officials were not born to do that. they're not trained to do that, it's not in their blood but they think about operating a network, that's the easy part of being in this business. they don't realize that and they also assume that the

incumbent will drop its price. any economist will tell you prices are going to go down and they don't take that into account. a lot of the models are oversold. some of them are not even pro forma financials, their. marketing pitch and they put into the bonds and simply put, some of them really have no chance at succeeding at all. is there room for fiber in a rural buildout? no. the thing that these cities need to listen to me, they say you have to give me an alternative. i have to do something. that's where the creative search for solutions which go outside the normal way and i'm finding when i talked my friends at gsm a, you normally think traditional tariffs would be resistance. if we don't find another solution, many of those providers will be under pressure. you'll have to serve i solid

because you're the carrier of last resort. also where we stop and allow traditional paid services to run where we can actually have sustainable, scalable models in the traditional mode, to actually understand how to right size is limited amount of universal service or other money that we need to do to solve problems which are commercially viable. >> alas one more question and open it up for anyone else would like to ask a question. directed to professor connelly and that is that lasher's conference, use use the term i hadn't heard before which is the waterbed effect. you are using it in the context of paid prioritization. there's a connection there between not enclosing the digital divide. how do we reach these rural areas? can you clean up networks? >> the conflict was within the context of no pay privatization. essentially, this amounts to a

subsidy that is paid to certain types of content providers who want the quality of service but don't want to pay for private translation. if we think about a waterbed, if any of you in the 70s ever went on a waterbed, if you push down on one side, you said the price had to be lower here for something, it's going to go up somewhere else. :

by reducing the ability to raise revenue give raise the number of consumers have made harder for them to be viable and you'll see fewer areas built up. it's quite simple. >> a question over here. microphone. >> if you could identify yourself. >> i'm an attorney. this is for professor yoo and it's more of the statement but feel free to give me some feedback. when you combine did no one needs one gig, i think back 20 years ago i a canadian telephone company. we had dinner with them up in alberta so you may guess who it is. they told me at the time the canadian government had set the standard for internet at ten and our jaws just got. what in the world are you doing? we were living in the world of

about $1000 a month for a line which is 1.5. 1.5. we had like it was coming. you might think ahead all the more one gig, i don't know what we would use it for but if somebody invents 3-d television tomorrow we might need a gig. we just don't know what is coming and i think it's sometimes to future proof your network and setting the site a little higher than you think you really need sometimes helps you with that. >> there's a huge risk in it. outdated to specific examples. one is in the late '90s it by calling my friends at verizon will forgive me, verizon did the first big fiber build. they built about 18 million homes at a cost of what was supposed be $24 billion and at&t chose to do another round similar number of homes 7 billion, less than a third. what's the first thing happen to

verizon is their agencies cut their bond prices. bond rating. cost of debt capital is gone and the second thing, the cost of equity goes up and that's not just on that venture commits at every venture they do before. they borrowed the money up front and have been paying interest on thursday zero and that it is erased. the revenue is coming fast this is a great investment. if the revenue is coming slowly this this is a terrible investment and in a world of you can postpone and invest in something else productively make it work. to their credit lte did the same dead and they succeeded. these were real companies putting real investment on the table and taking the chances. i give all the credit in the world investing in infrastructure. anyone who does this business knows you can be so enamored of future proofing the world that you end up losing your shirt. if you don't match the revenues with the costs, the numbers just don't lie. you will end doing bad financially. the other thing, we do have 3-d

tv. it and it failed. people are not broadcasting and more. everybody talks about 4k, i don't get it. of that would look at video wonderful decides either but i was wrong about that so were not smart enough to figure this out. the other is japan. for reasons that are not great has a great fiber network. why? because the japanese government still out one-third of the shared. they made them build it and all the private shareholders complain. they have separate financials. the private which right. it will never make money on it. it's built. do they have those great ads? the chicken and egg problem. they have the chicken. there is no egg. there may be some day but not now. as it is they put billions investment in the world where in japan huge infrastructure needs and they are not available. even if anyone is in the business knows if i have to make investments come if i can postpone it for three years, five years, i can make my

business better and can serve consumers better. >> the last case i was on as a lawyer montana power bankruptcy. montana power was a 30 old utility of the montana decide they would take part in the big broadband buildout in the '90s. late dark fiber all of her montana declared bankruptcy because of not making any money. disaster for the folks of montana. >> we are a bit over time here, so i apologize and say let's wind it up. thank you everyone for coming today and our panel. i believe randy has a few more words. [applause] >> well, thanks to our panel again, true group of all-stars. i could've stuck with that title if only i i were chairman of te fcc because we have some worthy candidates here. thanks to ted for moderating that. so we're going to close now i

think it's always good to close close to a discussion of order beds each year, and chicken that makes, i mean, that gives us something to think about and anticipate as we look towards next years conference. i want to thank all of you for being here. i i just think it's been a terrific conference for our tenth annual conference. each year i wonder whether we will be able to top it again next year, but this has been a good one and especially i want to thank our friends on c-span for being here and covering the conference today. we appreciate that. so with that we will close at the conference and i will say i will see you again next year. thank you. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] tonight it's booktv and primetime with autobiographies and memoirs.

booktv in booktv and primetime s week on c-span2. >> for nearly 20 years in depth on booktv has featured the nation's best known nonfiction writers for life conversations about their books. this year as a special project with featuring best-selling fiction writers for our monthly program "in depth" fiction edition. join us live sunday at noon eastern with walter mosley.

his most recent book is down the river unto the sea. during the program will be taking your phone calls, tweets and facebook messages. our special series "in depth" fiction edition with author walter mosley sunday live from noon to 3 p.m. eastern on booktv on c-span2. >> up next a senate judiciary committee hearing on the violence against women act. first passed in 1994 the law expires in september unless congress reauthorizes it. witnesses include the head of the justice department's office of violence against women, sending the prosecutor, an activist who work on domestic violence issues. [inaudible conversations]